for Charles Beck The flock is whorled like a translucent shell and intricate as the tubing of a horn, its embouchure, the soft foot of a snail lighting on sand, except the sand is corn, chisel ploughed and left to build the soil from which indebted farmers have been torn. I catch one note—a wild, wayfaring cry as snow geese splash into a glacial mere. Framed by moraines under a nacreous sky, they echo in the chambers of my ear. How does an ear rival your artist's eye that sees what I can only hope to hear? by Tim Murphy

art by Donald Zirilli