How Wonderful The Gift Of Life Seems 

Can you speak or write in the absolute now, or is the now gone in the time it takes for the now to hit your senses and wind its way up our nerves into our brains and then for us to speak or write it on a page?      

Can we overlook the micro-moments between perception and recording on the brain or on paper?     

In this near to now my dog licks his black paw stretched out on the bed. The light streams in a side window into this darkened room onto this notebook page and a dove outside calls. Those nearly nows are receding as my pen moves on the page trying to pin them down.     

The dove still calls. The air filter hums almost silently in this allergy season.     

Now there’s the sound of a page turning as I write more in the nearly now. It is close to quiet in this nearly now. A top drawer in this old brown wooden desk is half open. There is a humming in my ears. I have a taste of tinnitus.      

Here the nearly now is mostly still. Some might call it boring. So busy am I in recording that my thoughts are rare. My body feels a little tired. My sad bad knees are both aching. Should I be sorry this nearly now is not more dramatic?      

Put down your cell phones, kids, and enjoy the silence. Learn to muse and think on your own.    No bombs are falling outside but I know they are falling elsewhere. I hear the quite whir of a plane overheard. Rain is falling, a slow rain outside that my dog and I don’t hear, or maybe Coco dog hears.      

It’s been peaceful to settle into this nearly now. I am content, and now I am thinking in this nearly now, of a thought I had yesterday.     

Is that cheating?     

Is that thought as much of the now as the tinnitus in my ears? You may disagree if you are here with me in the nearly now at a later date.     

Yesterday’s thought is about the story of life’s beginning. I learned in school that life began with the mixing of chemicals in a warm body of water. The constant stirring in currents of the chemicals finally led to life. Perhaps it was a virus kind of life since a virus sits on the edge of life and nonlife.     

 But what if life bloomed in more than one place, here on this planet or elsewhere? What if life had multiple origins? Maybe there are aliens out there and distant planets we cannot travel to in multiple lifetimes. I am thinking of this in the nearly now. Any memory pulled from the past as thought is now in the nearly now.      

And when I am thinking in the nearly now, am I not also thinking a bit in the future in a yearning for the future?     

I’m thinking I may publish this rambling on the nearly now in the future. It is the possibility of sharing my thoughts with others that leads me to write them down. Nearly now thoughts of the future are pulling me forward.    

So perhaps no divides exist between the past, the nearly now, and the future. Time, as the old metaphor said, is a flowing river and cannot be divided.     

My hope is that some souls in the future will read this and the ideas will live again rolling through their nearly nows, and I will kind of live again.    

 It has stopped raining. My spouse is starting to move about, getting ready to check on the backyard garden. I give my love a quick kiss as she heads out the back door. I may feel differently tomorrow—what with the terrible calls coming out of the wider world—but how wonderful the gift of life seems in this nearly now. 

The Legend of Loquat Island

1. You Bring All of Yourself

When the sun has fully turned to summer,

you are still there,

among the indistinct clouds.

You do not come,

do not step on any of the seven strings,

rhythmically stepping out of the unclear clouds.

Nor do I go.

The stop sign is yellow, hidden by pagoda blossoms;

I fear I might lose my way.

The wind runs along the shadows of flowers till noon,

and noon shatters in the sound of the qin.

Flowers are like eyes, gazing at fruits from afar.

Leaves and sails turn brown gradually —

summer is growing old.

For loneliness is a game of Go,

played by the left hand against the right.

In a throat murmur, I paint rust over your name,

walk near the fence, bend with the grapevines and peer.

It is already summer, so much summer.

Soon the flowers will put on yellow jackets.

The last bus always writes ugly novels,

yet cannot write your warm name.

You are my summer.

When you come, summer stays.

Let maple leaves burn themselves out.

As long as you bring all of yourself.

2. Perhaps I Do Not Love You

Perhaps I should not speak this obscure sentence.

Your drizzle is about to damp my swaying steps again.

Your story moves me,

moves the vast seasonal moods in my heart.

A liquid landscape rises on our cheeks, a curved theme.

Your eyelashes, scattered with chinaberry flowers,

take me as your future.

Yet from your small figure, I revisit my past.

In this summer with a mischievous sun,

innocent fruits stir the noise of old days.

It is only that we are too gentle, like water,

fond of waiting and remembering.

All from one moment’s attention

grew into the whole secret of my life.

I love you — the shadow of my childhood in you.

Please love me too — your promised autumn in me.

Let us be two mirrored Z’s,

lyrical on either side of a single sentence.

3. Duet

We walk into a night without a title,

into a bumpy alley.

The moon, a yellowish raven,

holds the burning road behind us.

One easily grows emotional in the dark.

You say it’s nothing — we’re poets,

so I am no longer shy.

I take your hand and walk past the lamps of misunderstanding.

Alley connects to street; the alley is a solo.

We are a bumpy duet,

perhaps all duets are like this.

We laugh secretly, and our laughter turns to flowers on branches.

We cannot turn back; the moon still lingers,

we have lingered too.

That year we both lost love, both looked pale.

It is fate, you say, pressing your lips

and holding me tighter.

I only lift my head and whistle a clumsy tune.

The alley leads to the long street.

We count the stop signs one by one and do not stop.

In every tree shadow, two pairs of eyes catch each other.

The duet behind us spreads into a clear mixed forest.

You imitate my whistle,

then scare yourself away.

On the main street,

we give away our bumpy heartbeats

to all the lingering figures of Pisces.

4. Loquat Island

Loquat Island lies where God does not reach.

Invitations are rejected,

stamps are rejected.

Even the temperamental typhoon

cannot land on Loquat Island.

Loquats on Loquat Island never ripen.

Summer flowers only bloom for crowded music.

All numbers from one to seven love lyricism.

Loquat Island, Loquat Island, far out at sea.

Tender green coconuts are lifted by tides to keep balance.

Drift bottles carry distant questions.

We pass through the typhoon.

We land gently, on each other’s coastal lips.

Since we came, the moon has hidden in the bird’s nest in the tree,

the sun has lost its way in our eyes,

and drizzle always murmurs softly.

Since we came, loquats no longer turn sour.

We occupy the date of waves and rocks,

the date of moon and sun.

We link our hands into a rainbow and claim sovereignty.

With a wave of the sleeve,

we snap the rope of the canoe,

wave away the one-way wind and rain.

Let us stay on Loquat Island —

be two loquat trees growing ten leaves each,

standing in a season where even stones can bloom.

Loquat Island, Loquat Island, abundant in love.

Let us pretend to be mountain spirits,

cloaked in litchi leaves, greedy and playful.

If one day the sea is stuffed full of loquats we shake down,

will you invite the lovelorn typhoon

to come to our Loquat Island

and taste authentic loquat love?

May 24, 1985

 Father’s light 

Father, your warmth is like the sun so bright,

Every word you speak guides me through the night.

When I grow weary, your voice gives me might,

In my heart, you are a beacon of light.

Your soul is vast, like the shoreless sea,

Through you, I found faith and the strength to be.

No hardship can ever discourage me,

For with you by my side, I stand strong and free.

Hardworking, honest, and kind in your way,

None can replace you, come what may.

Your smile is my joy, the light of my day,

May your life be a throne where golden rays play.

With you, our home is filled with grace,

Peace and happiness in every space.

Stay healthy and near us, in love’s embrace,

May joy follow every step you trace.

Gulsanam Mamasiddiqova was born on July 22, 2007, in the Oltiariq district of the Fergana region, Uzbekistan. A 2025 graduate of School No. 25 in Oltiariq, she is currently a first-year student at Andijan State University, majoring in Philology and Language Teaching (English). Gulsanam is passionate about literature and linguistics, seeking to bridge cultures through her creative writing and poetic voice.

Corsica 

France valued you at a price, and Genoa prospered from your sale.

Your isle of beauty took France’s lustful glances, as Genoa for gain, sold her costly Cabochon.

Your beautiful bay and dramatic cliffs caused so much contention for your dowry.

Palombaggia’s white sands are lovers’ basking points, where dreams and many fantasies come to fruition.

Rocky coves, diverse plains and mountainous interiors attract every romantic adventurer seeking your atmospheric and fragrant scrubland.

You are the pearl between Italy and France!

The very beautiful bride between, guarded jealously by France’s over-protective all seeing eye.

Bonaparte first inhaled you at infancy! 

On Saint Helena’s very distant bland shores, he nostalgically christened you his childhood paradise.

In his depths of longing, he craved and craved for your fragrant earth, like one who craved for his departed Josephine!

Joseph C Ogbonna is a widely published poet, former high school teacher and an amateur historian. Some of his many works have been published in Spillwords Press, North of Oxford, Waxpoetry Magazine, Borderless magazine, Micromance magazine, PoetryXhunger and in at least two dozen anthologies. He is also an Amazon International best selling co-author.

YOU ARE THE BEGINNING

Your soul is a boundless sky,

Its stars are ever watchful, never sleeping,

Like silver flowers in an indigo field.

The garden where our souls met,

Beneath a canopy of fire that doesn’t burn the skin,

But warms the depths of our being.

In the gentle sway of your spirit 

and the light of your gaze, I see the dance of shadows,

When the soft twilight of your presence 

meets the golden light of dawn,

Victorying over every night with a radiant smile.

You are the beginning and the end,

When the world remains a mountain shrouded in mist,

And the road is long and winding through the forest of time,

Your heart has become the melody of my blossoms,

The pulse of the hidden stream 

that carries my song to the sea.

You are the music the wind whispers to the leaves,

The song felt before it is heard.

In your serene stillness,

A captivating beauty is revealed, 

like a wildflower at midnight.

A beauty that glows with a faint, burning flame. 

It is a spirit that rises and stretches 

until it touches the edge of infinity.

I see you in the purity of morning dew,

Water as clear as a mountain spring,

A spirit as wild as the west wind.

Our love is an ocean without limits,

Without a bottom, sweet and eternal.

In the features of your face, 

in the light of your eyes, 

I find the beginning and end of every path.

You are the first breath in our journey,

And the radiance of all that is written for us to be.

Your spirit is the beginning and end of my path.

Symptoms of An Effortless Adoration

2.

All of our conversations, I remember almost exactly. 

Some say I am clearly confused for

gaining a rise from how hard I fall intended towards one, yet

I feel it’s wise to be a fool for you.

1.

A pure personality tainted by those parallel to I,

on different plains of style we find commonalities and share secrets, 

destined to be revealed to each other, building bonds through kind insults,

I must say, when you call me a loser, that is when I feel the most like a winner.

0.

Once in awhile, I’ll constantly call back to our quick chats,

considering all possibilities of the actions that I won’t take into account.

I drive my mind to pick my future, the only option being not to decide.

It is seriously comical at how hideous this ethereal appreciation is.

-1.

My intellect creates rooms of demolition where my fantasies become reality.

Even so, I am burned by the realness that remains frozen 

oddly throughout my body, past the parts I can’t perceive.

I am hidden from my flaws, you are known for your perfection.

-2.

When you flood my dry phone, I’ll smile and

while my body is pierced, bleeding a gentle praise,

I’ll repeat to myself the words I hope will end this admiration,

I despise how much I love you.