Tag Archives: WakeBreatheMove

How Do We Determine What Mars Is Made Of by Christina M. Rau

Sampling and photographs
over years until drying out.
A flight of ages. When they go
they go for good.
They say goodbye
and know the silting red
will be dug up for graves.
They know the shallow dips
and angled hills will be
playgrounds, outbacks, landscape
views for all. They know money
doesn’t matter. After setting down.
The rovers didn’t need to
disconnect in this
way. They did and then they
did not.
In millennia
it will be human bone in the loam.

Christina M. Rau is the author of the Elgin Award-winning poetry collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press) and the chapbooks WakeBreatheMove and For The Girls, I. She is Editor-in-chief for The Nassau Review at Nassau Community College and founder of the Long Island poetry circuit Poets In Nassau. http://www.christinamrau.com

Mapping The Gnomes by Christina M. Rau

Stuck in a corkboard,
all sightings get categorized—

Red:  Definite
Blue: Possible
Yellow: Probable
Orange: Unlikely

A 3-D connect-the-dots journey
between bushes in Brussels
under azaleas in Iceland
among marigolds in Massachusetts
through paved paths in Puerto Rico
behind vines in Bellvue
around weeds in West Germany.

Reports come in rapid at sunrise
when the light excites and surprises—
three or four skittering across lawns and behind
old dog houses, their voices louder than
you’d think, if that’s that kind of thing
you think about.

They shout Make Way! Hold Back!
They move in scattered variety,
hurry to their places to
complement the poppies
accent the petunias
uphold the underbrush
with a wink, with a wish.

The big board tracks all the movement,
an attempt to capture magic
on the head of a pin.


Christina M. Rau is the author of the poetry chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Founder of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island, NY, her poetry has appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, and most recently in the journals Amethyst Arsenic and Better Than Starbucks. In her non-writing life, she practices yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions. www.christinamrau.com