Hero's Eyes

by Bacopa Literary Review Fiction contributor William Nuessle

Jessie tipped her gauntleted hand carefully so the peregrine falcon would step off onto the fence post and grip the wood with all six razor-sharp talons. Heronimus settled on her perch, scissoring her blue-gray wings behind her back, studying her master with eyes of yellow-rimmed obsidian.

"You can do this," the falconer-in-training whispered to both of them.

Jessie is the main character in a (so far) unpublished novel written in 2020; by the time that story is taking place she is nineteen and a fully trained falconer. At some point after the manuscript was finished and resting, I realized that I wanted to know about this moment--when she and Hero had their first flight.

Pulling a gobbet of raw meat out of the pocket, she placed it in her gloved fingers where Hero could see and whistled down-up-down like they'd practiced over and over.

Without hesitation Hero leaned off the post, her talons scratching the wood. A rapid whumpwhumpwhump of powerful wings, a lifting of taloned feet later and Hero was feeding, the comforting two pounds returned to Jessie's wrist.

"Well done, my love," she whispered, elated.

The moment in and of itself was worth a close look, but the chance to also further explore the tempestuous relationship between Jessie and her mother offers (one hopes) a layer of depth to an already interesting story.

*    *    *

Will Nuessle holds a third-degree brown belt in ninjitsu, rides a Harley, primary caregives three little boys, and claims he can recite the alphabet backwards in less than thirty seconds. More of his writing may be found at Will's Worldwide Writing -- The Story So Far.

Read William Nuessle's "Hero's Eyes" (pp. 136-138)
and other fine Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Prose Poetry
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021

Warning

 by 2021 Poetry contributor Carolyn Martin

Stories from National Geographic have often inspired my poems including the one published in the 2021 edition.

"Warning" was prompted by a statement in Jodi Cobb's article, "Strange Reflections" (March 2019), which I used as the poem's epigraph:

When confronted with the limits of the known world,
a 16th-century European cartographer inscribed the warning
"Here Be Dragons" on a small copper globe. Beware: What lies
beyond is unexplored--and perilous.

"Warning" begins with the challenge to find a vantage point high enough to see the horizon where we can ". . . wait   for flames   four legs/ a scaly frame. . ."

It ends, however, with the realization that the perils in this century are not unexplored dragons, but they lie in realities ". . . like love/and loss   grief and regret   prejudice and hate . . ." These are "lurking nearby" in the "world-at-hand" and need to be explored.

Here's another poem prompted by the National Geographic and links to poems recently published in The Phare, One Art, and The Headline Review.

*    *    *

Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 130 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. She is the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation. Find out more at Carolyn's website.

Enjoy Carolyn Martin's "Warning" and other fine Poetry,
Prose Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021

 

In Front of the Full-Length Mirror

 by Bacopa Literary Review 2021 Creative Nonfiction contributor Jennifer Lang

"In Front of the Full-Length Mirror" was many versions before this one. I started it during my MFA as a rough guide to my body, each scar with its own story, twisting and turning through time. 

Only years later did I understand how un-unique my story is after reading Dana Jennings' "Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives" in The New York Times and David Owen's "Scars: A Life in Injuries" in The New Yorker. 

Still, I stuck with it. Compelled to write about my marks. Despite numerous iterations, the structure stayed intact: from foot to head, nonlinear, that ended where I intended.

But between the time I started this essay in 2015 and finished it in 2020, I had a wake-up moment that altered the focus and changed the tone: the phone call from my dermatologist about the melanoma, followed by nine stitches and cancer screening. I went back into the story to add the first scar, the hardest one to live with, the one of morbidity and impermanence, adding lines like:

"Death is like looking in the mirror, seeing our deeper selves, the bare-bones truths. I am dying, my wounds evidence of this promise. They remind me of my fragility, my inability to stop nature."

After loads of rejections, I am thrilled my essay found its home in Bacopa Literary Review.

*     *     *

Jennifer Lang's essays have appeared in Under the Sun, Ascent, and Consequence, among other publications. Read more of her work at Israel Writers Studio and reach out to Jennifer on her Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Read Jennifer Lang's "In Front of the Full-Length Mirror" and other
compelling Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, and Prose Poetry
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021.

Oh. There Is No Going Back

 by Bacopa Literary Review 2021 poetry contributor Megan Wildhood

"Oh. There Is No Going Back" came to me in an instant, nearly whole, on the day in April 2021 when I realized that we as a society are never going back to normal. I had long since stopped wiping down every screen and surface with hydrogen peroxide and I wasn't washing my hands raw every 12 hours anymore like I had the previous year, but I had truly thought that the end of this would at least be in view by the second Easter after the dawn of COVID.

It was starting to happen anyway, but the pandemic turbo-charged the demolition of my self-concept politically, which has ended up rewriting everything else about who I thought I was up until the advent of the pandemic era. 

On that unusually clear day, Oh. There Is No Going Back came to me in almost the exact way it was published. I felt my relationship to the future change. It was bigger than no longer being able to walk people up to the gate at the airport. So much was being disfigured about current life and the future.

Too much.

And I hadn't seen it. Until the day Oh. There Is No Going Back came to me. I had still been trusting that there was.

*     *     *

Megan Wildhood is an erinacious, neurodiverse lady writer in Seattle who helps her readers feel genuinely seen as they interact with her dispatches from the junction of extractive economics, mental and emotional distress, disability, and reparative justice. She hopes you will find yourself in her words as well as The Atlantic, Yes! Magazine, Mad in America, The Sun, and elsewhere.

Read Megan Wildhood's "Oh. There Is No Going Back" (p. 1) and other compelling

Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Prose Poetry
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021

 

Huitzilin

 by 2021 Fiction First Prize winner Tomas Baiza

I've loved hummingbirds ever since I was a child. I was never obsessed with them, but whenever one buzzed by, I would stop whatever I was doing and watch in mute awe. 

Everyone I knew seemed to infantilize them as cute or adorable, as if they existed for our entertainment. To me, though, they were fast, strong, and courageous. 

Their aggressiveness was somehow benevolent, serious but good-natured, and their jewel-like colors were so bright I could see their sparkling feathers even after I closed my eyes.

We spin and joust. Our kissing shrieks bounce off the kitchen window. Her long beak jabs and thrusts, black eyes wild and dancing in her emerald green crest.

I can't remember when or from whom I learned that the native people of central Mexico venerated hummingbirds as the reincarnated souls of fallen warriors, returned for but a short time. All I know is that it made perfect sense--there could be no better explanation for their furious energy, their frantic need to hurry before being called to their next adventure.

Hummingbirds didn't simply exist. They had a purpose.

I'm trying to teach you," my Papi said. "When we leave this world, He waits. He is patient. Your abuelita taught me that He lets us rest for exactly four years to the day and then brings us back to help Him. Since the beginning, m'ija, He honors us as huitzilin, as hummingbirds, His most honest and loyal warriors."

The first hummingbird I saw after my son died stopped me in my tracks. I stood motionless on the sidewalk near my home, silently pleading for it to come closer. It dipped to drink from a flower in someone's front yard, spinning round often to survey its surroundings. I started to shake with memories of holding my son, of humming a Mexican lullaby to him as the life passed from his body--and then reminded myself that this meeting was a blessing of sorts, that this huitzilin could have chosen anywhere to feed, but it chose this garden just as I walked past. I slowly approached and it rose to hover above the flower bed. The little warrior turned to face me, its wings a blur.

"Hi," I said, and it was gone.

I aim myself at the Sun and race to the only war that was ever worth fighting.

Above Tonatiuh's roar, Papi's last shout comes through. "¡Arriba, m’ija!"

And so, I become light.

*    *    *

 

Tomas Baiza was born and raised in San Jose, California, and now lives in Boise, Idaho. He is a Pushcart-nominated author whose short fiction and poetry have appeared in Parhelion Literary Magazine, Peatsmoke Literary Journal, The Rush Magazine, Obelus, [PANK] Magazine, The Meadow, The Good Life Review, Passengers Journal, Kelp Journal, The Write Launch, and elsewhere.

Read Tomas Baiza's "Huitzilin" (pp. 156-160) and other Fiction,
Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Prose Poetry
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021