New poems from Richard Jordan

Winter at Still River by Richard Jordan

On the River

Today I saw my grandfather knee-deep
in the Nissitissit, varnished bamboo fly rod,
hand-tied blue winged olive, pipe smoke
swirling with the morning mist. He was
focused skyward—an osprey circling
beneath charcoal clouds, the kind of dark
that threatens storms & keeps most
anglers inside, but not my grandfather
& not me. It’s what we covet, solitude
on the river. I waded in just as he waded
his way downstream toward a wide meander.
I think he was following the osprey, waiting
for it to locate a rainbow trout then dive.
I wanted to call out to him but couldn’t
bring myself to raise my voice above
the murmurs of the current. Still, I saw
my grandfather today & he stood tall again
as if he could keep casting until dusk.
It’s been so long. It’s been most of my life.

Good Enough

A recently drowned willow branch
at the Squannacook this morning
is good enough for a black-capped
chickadee to rest on. He’s out
in the open despite gray skies
and icy drizzle. That’s the way it is—
not much of a perch is needed to
make it from one moment to the next.
I take a step and he flutters off
downstream, though not too far.
I can see him still, bobbing on a limb
that stretches high across the river,
an arch from this shore to the other.
Perhaps another of his kind will come
to join him there. Perhaps they’ll sing.

Back to the Well

There it lurked at the bottom of Grandpa’s well, out past the wreckage of the Soviet copter he’d shot down: the largest rainbow trout that ever was. It had cost me an Indian Head penny to wish the behemoth into existence. I told everyone but only Grandpa believed me. You can lead a horse…he used to say, cocking his rifle skyward. One time he let me pull the trigger & afterward it rained a solid week. I wished for an Appaloosa that I could ride to school & church on Sundays, bounding over deep puddles on the way, though not even a vintage silver dollar would conjure a stallion. Don’t worry, Grandpa said. There will come a day. I said, You bet. Together we lowered our baited treble hooks all the way down to that wonderful dark water.

Richard Jordan’s poems appear in Southern Poetry Review, DMQ Review, Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, SoFloPoJo, and elsewhere. His chapbook, The Squannacook at Dawn, won first place in the 2023 Poetry Box Contest. Another chapbook, Spotting the Rise, is available through Rockwood Press. His first full-length collection, Not So Bad, will be published by Shanti Arts in 2027.

New images from Najib Joe Hakim

NAJIB JOE HAKIM is a documentary photographer, artist, and photography instructor. Hakim is the president of the board for the Network of Photographers for Palestine; a founding member of Class Conscious Photographers; recipient of the Rebuilding Alliance Storytellers Award for a trilogy of Palestine projects; a Political Art Fellow at

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