By sound of copper leaves skittering down the road, pushed
by October’s bristle broom, by wind that’s not too cold
but certain in its rippling waves, out, out, out…
I light an amber candle, color of strength & purpose, needing
courage of conviction. It sputters & flickers in the draft from
the window left open a crack.
One lone night bird chirps in the orchard heavy with apples.
The plain facts do not change, like the chorus, the same.
It’s hard to shake life’s punishing utility.
By M.J. Iuppa
M.J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. For the past eight years, she and her husband Peter Tonery have been committed to food sustainability. She has numerous publications (poetry, fiction, nonfiction and plays) in national and international journals as well as two full-length poetry collections Night Traveler (Foothills, 2003) and Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collection, 2010) and five chapbooks; her latest prose chapbook is Between Worlds Foothills, 2013. She served as the poetry adviser (2007-2012) for the New York Foundation for the Arts, and since 1986, has worked as a teaching artist in the schools, K-12 for a variety of agencies (RCSD, BOCES 2, Young Audiences, Genesee Valley BOCES, Project U.N.I.Q.U.E. and V.I.T.A.L. Writers & Books, and others) Currently she is Writer-in-Residence and Director of Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. Her e-mail address: