creative writing on environmental justice
Walking through the forest under the lights of the setting sun, I asked, “Is this all true?”
Pervu said, “Nobody here lies about the Sunset Hill, but the city-people rarely believe what we say, Sir.” The way he spoke made it clear that he didn’t have much respect for the city-people. An awkward silence fell as we walked, crushing the fallen yellow leaves under our . . .
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Welcome to the Reckoning Press podcast. Reckoning is a nonprofit, annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice. I’m Michael J. DeLuca, publisher and sometime editor.
Today I am very pleased to share with you Marie Vibbert’s reading of “The Eater of Dirt”, her flash story from Reckoning 3, the text of which comes out today at reckoning.press.
Besides selling . . .
Among her many names, the one that remains is Eater of Dirt. The rest have been cast off, but one name is enough to sustain her. The filth-goddess knows the flavor of fairy footsteps, the crumble of dead magic and the taste of tiny living jewels with wings that crunch in her teeth. Men may fling her holy name about as an insult, but they don’t know how sweet and savory . . .
Dog would eat anything. That was a comfort. If Martin had had to starve the poor bugger he might have thought twice about keeping quarantine, because the only other alternative was unacceptable. At some point, hunger would likely have pushed Dog to break his training and go for the kakapo, and the two of them had worked too hard on Resolution to see that happen. . . .
Worlds depart; their light endures.
Over five years before, I had arrived on the planet we call DA3(1), the Third Daughter of star Alkahran and the only life-bearing body in the system. As with most planets, this one had no specific name in the language of its natives: they called their sun the Sun, their world the World, and its inhabitants People. This world was . . .
Not long after the election, when the left had failed
to reassure the broken hearted,
and the broken hearted had elected a lunatic
out of spite, I kayaked out to where the light
had never been torn,
to watch the darkness gathering
in the mountains’ seams.
Cool rain on flat seas, ducks ahead of me,
white trails of their wings beating water
as they fled. Fresh . . .
The city of Yonkers is being invaded in many different ways at once.
Among the types of invasive plants that plague Westchester county are Kudzu, Mile-a-Minute, Oriental Bittersweet, Porcelain Berry, Multiflora Rose, Purple Loosestrife and Japanese Knotweed. Each has a distinct personality; they can be identified by leaf shape, size, color and the aggression . . .
In Indonesia the IAP was shelling Jakarta, in China the PLA Navy was scouring the Eastern seaboard for survivors, in the UK Londoners were lining up at WFP stations for groceries, and, just twenty miles from Felix and Anya, in Muscatine the combined forces of the Louisa, Muscatine, Scott, and Cedar County police departments were performing rescue missions . . .
Kestrel: (from French crécerelle, derivative from crécelle, i.e. ratchet)
Also known as windhover because he can hover, even in still air, but when he
hovers he usually faces toward a breeze, no matter how slight.
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote
Dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding / of the rolling level underneath him steady air . . . . . . .