Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 2.23 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by Charlotte Melin , Jared Carter , John Dorsey , and Karly Vance . Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers
After New Year’s Eve Already gone the luminaries of New Year’s Eve that lighted the curving paths in the park, the forks to enter or exit. A chill has settled in, and silence. A neighbor lifts the undecorated tree into his truck, a few kids straggle over the green. Here and there a puff of steam exhales from a heat vent. At one house the smell of laundry drifts over the sidewalk, reaching out as if we were all tidying up together. No one is welcoming the months to come, the inevitable discord. Yet last night in the dark, the luminaries were so peaceful as they faintly flickered promises. Charlotte Melin grew up in Indiana and returns to visit. Retired from the University of Minnesota, she lives in Northfield and has published widely about German poetry, the environmental humanities, and teaching.