Jon Teets and Lorianne Zeller, Publishers
Paula Grenside, Poetry & Art Editor
David Ayers, Prose & Art Editor
David Wright, Editor
Steve Harris, Contributing Editor
Design by Carol Yocom.
For Ron Jones
##
Today I put out the fire in my pen and watched
the point
of embering turn from glow to a wick of wisp-- it
is the
'plock, plock' of heavy raindrops falling
from the chest-
nut trees, down, as they must do, denting the roof
of the book-
seller's tent, that brings to the joy of early spring
that chilling
nub of early winter.
Pascal said that all the evils in the world come
from men not
being able to sit, quiet, in a room. In repose we
are good in
that we are not rummaging through condemnations,
rising with
the swell of a wave that topples over all the Damascusses
of
our inner lives, cushioning the harms our slights
have caused
with a finger at our closed lips.
I saw Ron Jones as a child not yet too old to be
pushed in a
pram by a nurse. They were in a park and while a-tarry
under
an awning that led visitors to a house of glass,
the baby Jones
held out his arms in a sudden release to clarification
and a shock
of recognition-- it is good to tarry and it all
was good when he
came to sit quietly in a room.
We buried Jones in a place reserved adjacent the
Walk of I'le
d'Oleron-- the cobbled lane lovers take into Gauches
Park.
After, I wandered to the line of bookseller tents.
I watched a
lady maunder about inside, touching the spines of
leather books,
dancing her fingers atop the glisten of jackets,
mindless, as if
breaking an afternoon away from the emptiness of
her rooms--
the strawberries rotting in the sink, the shucks
of corn drying in
a basket, the pile of pushed down sheets and the
fester of old,
yellowed cases for the pillows.
What was the graveside service to her, that she
did not watch?
What was it to me, that I did?
Don Taylor
A Word from the Staff
Welcome.
As you can see, it’s pretty packed.
It. This Avatar Review. This dwelling.
This issue. This house. This complex and elaborate,
highly-evolved metaphorical structure. This symbolic
unity.
This real, very real, gathering of electrons &
protons & neutrons, 0s and 1s, wires, screens
(& other screens, monitor screens), focal points—and
all the human interest, all it takes, all it’s taken,
to fill the space before you with these words and
these images and these sounds.
This interior and its supporting elements. This
outside and its surrounding neighborhood. This Nile
over here and this Venus over there. This moon and
this excellent bottle of Rioja.
Welcome.
The dwelling is important. When we leave it, we
never know quite where we’re going [when we leave
it], but we know what it means to leave it. To leave
home. We know what it means to say, I will return
home and I will stay home. We know what
it means to be at home, to call a place home,
and to make our home [in a place]. Home is where
we dwell.
Welcome.
We think there are as many ways to live in this
world as there are homes in this world. And even
more ways, many more ways, of expressing home. We
think they all have a place here; they have a home.
And so, to those who’ve decided to call this place
home, to be with us here, in this space/time, for
this time/space; to our contributors and to our
readers; to our friends and our colleagues; to Ron
especially, and to Ron’s family—Madonna, Jocelyn,
and Emily—
Welcome.
This house is a response to chaos.
