Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 7.22 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have two poems to share with you in this issue. We hope you enjoy this issue. Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? Submissions are free for the summer! For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Links to each piece in this edition below. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers POETRY Charlotte Melin, "In the Wisconsin Arboretum" and "Flock" Are you a writer who is from the Midwest or has close ties to the Midwest? We'd love to read your work. Submissions info in the tab above.  Support the Indiana Writers Center!

In the Wisconsin Arboretum A sea of horsetails under the boardwalk and blue flags bloom in the marsh. A pair of sandhill cranes browses the pond edge, wild indigo waves white in the distance where wet prairie paths are closed. Under the trees, the confetti of  yellow-orange petals seem inexplicable  until I see leaf hands waving above— a tall tulip tree, farther north than I thought possible until  we encounter another and  expectations are overturned. The twisting drive here made  my head spin like a gyroscope. Now when you look at the trail map, I’m disoriented, feel my brain refuse to make sense of markers and turns. Yet, even unable to orient myself  to a chart, I notice the clues left by petals, like breadcrumbs  for our way back to Indiana.         Flock Driving home from Indiana we finally see the blackbirds I’ve missed all fall, feeding in stubbled cornfields. Later another flock shapeshifts south in migration, a mesmerizing...