Andrew Bambrick

Leaf Peepers Time Once the luminescent leaves appear on trees The leaf peepers are smitten. Pint-sized knee huggers squeal with joy. Their tiny feet trudge through the newest layers of leaves. Traffic slows to a crawl in towns and on rural roads. Gawkers witness nature's...

Poverty's Family Web Hopes and dreams languish Poverty's sticky web holds members in place. Impermanence and unpredictability Define their movements. Limited by stretched family dyamics And precarious economic opportunities, Downward mobility is An ever-present danger. Loyalty bonds taut Make breakouts very difficult. Escapees feel exhiliration And pangs of guilt for those...

The Selfie Mist The selfie is a universal icon. Its presence is felt everywhere But remains only digital mist. We are both the subject and object of our attention. There is a voyeuristic joy of looking at oneself And transmitting one's image to persons known and...

Cloud Musings The cloud, internet's invisible twin, Became humankind's ever-expanding memory locker. Heralded as a communication panacea. Accolades quickly followed: instant connectivity, Colossal business opportunities, a pathway to Utopia with reach. When the cloud darkened, Hackers with their skeleton keys Made web users their potential prey. Voyeurism was transformed...

Closure Universally sought after Arduous to achieve. Grief's heavy air envelops the survivors. Morning time elastic The absent member relationship Continuous on within us. Broken sleep Time slippage Sluggish movements Pain and sorrow need to congeal. The urge to snuff out the flickering process Is a temptation to be resisted True closure's...

My Old Man The call Unwanted yet expected. My emotional in-flight bag stuffed. Anticipated loss, sorrow and pain Fought for my attention. Late airport arrival Blinked tears Hushed voices Resignation tones 25-minute commute Seemed unending. Room 205 Tubes and infernal beeping Then The signal to disconnect given Complicit family members twitched and shuddered Before us now The...

Grandfather's Time In the pre-dawn light The caged canary sings. Miners like random clumps of clay In iron cages descend. Carbon lights' flickering tongues Illumine sharp shining Glistening anthracite coal. Their veins await extraction, An explosion of drills and axes, Hollow blackgold veins. A cacophony of ethnic voices Mingle with the...

The power went out in the whole village. I could see my Grandfather Thom's face, which was partially visible by the light of candles in the room. He began his Thunderbird and White Feather story by clearing his throat. The...

You are not required to take a course in it. No one can tell you where to find it. Yet it is necessary for healthy living. True friendship is not only rare but illusive. My earliest memory of friendship dates...

Let's face it. We do not value human tissue and its continuance on this planet. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, school children practiced duck-and-cover drills, useless against gamma rays from an atomic explosion. For those 10 days in...