When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and hiking. She leads a birding group twice monthly through the neighborhood trails. She volunteers in animal rescue and tends to cat colonies. Some of her poems have appeared in Impspired, Origami Poetry Project, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review, and other grand places. Her latest collection is “On the whims of the crosscurrents,” published by Red Wolf Editions.

Waiting for flowers

It’s now been a fortnight
and we’ve tallied three moons.

Leaves wear the green again.
May eclipsed March.

With a cauldron of topsoil,
we dig in the garden; baring
hands, gnarling knuckles,
crackling of feet.

Till daily, come sunrise, I watch
as the other ones bloom right
before us. (even those strange
purple weeds)

Still, I open each morning, and 
hope that our flowers come up.

What she’ll miss most

For some, it's the carousel;
others, the surf or the tiki bar.

For Jane, it's the skimmers.

They come for the season, flying
in from the Panhandle.

Setting up space, in a square on
the sands, nesting their baby chicks.

Latter days August; they've hatched
and they've fledged. It's time to move
south, for this family.

Tony will miss the sea air and the
zeppeles, the rainbow of snow cones
and the double shot daiquiris.

For Jane,  it's the skimmers; barely a
trace of them, this cool, empty morning.

Musing on mourning doves

It starts to get quiet, again.

In the puddled reflection, a
dozen or so mourning doves
methodically pick through
debris, revealing the fruit seeds
I toss them each day.

But most of the summertime
flock, along with the leaves on
a limbo, have started to sojourn,

leaving me longing, feeling the
inching of Winter, as I'm counting
down backwards, one leaf, and one
bird, at a time.