Poems in this issue Linda Barrett Ruth Deming Jan Felgoise Marion Fox Angela Glover Jan Goldman Maxine Hobbs Grace Lynch Marvin Thall   Edited by Kristine Grow For more information about  writing workshops offered by the Cheltenham Township Adult School, contact: Cheltenham Township Adult School 1414 Panther Road Wyncote, PA 19095 Phone: 215-887-1720	Ruth Deming  Ruth Z. Deming is a psychotherapist and the director of New Directions Support Group for people with depression, bipolar disorder and their loved ones. She invites readers to join her Hatboro Writers Group on the third Saturday of the month at 1 pm at Le Coffee Salon.  Song of the Crickets This time last year when the poppies burst on their stems the three of us went to Maine. You could say we took Maine by storm, but that wasn’t quite it, driving up the coast that never did appear for the new road swung back too far. But we knew it was there, the Coast, somewhere.   My son told me later it was only on my account that he and Sarah decided to come along at all.   I unlocked the door of the motel and put away our things, our hairbrush and deodorant, contact lens case and tour guides laying them across the dresser and television set, opening the blinds so we could see what Maine looked like.   It was the dinner hour.   They were ready to start watching television right away, as soon as they’d checked the drawers for things left behind. There were a hundred channels up for grabs and they wanted to go through them all, all one hundred, to find a movie that suited them both. I was like that once. They were tired and bleary-eyed.   I put the key in my pocket undid the chain and went outdoors into the state of Maine. A car whizzed by on some road out front, a road we’d turned onto from the larger road, the road that never did meet the sea. So much for picture postcards of lighthouses and lobsters.   Then I heard it: the cry of the woods, a trembling rising roar that soared toward the darkening sky like a switch turned suddenly on. I stood at the door, the white washcloth smell of the room clinging to my hair. And listened to what seemed to be the first crickets I ever did hear, ancient, spindly, gathering in prayer from vast empty spaces impossible to get to, impossible to find.   I went in to get them, Sarah and Dan, serene and barefoot, their hair illuminated by the glow of the screen. They were watching as two men in a bar clinked glasses, neckties loosened, while the two of them, the children, whooped with their quick, you’ll-see laughter, a knowledge of plot complications I never could grasp, certainly not now, having been out in the night, wanting so bad to break into their blue martini heaven, their barefoot bliss to tell them of my find,   Nothing more than crickets chirping in the field beyond, crickets chirping in the night.                          I Pick Your Trash, John Leonard,                              Now That You're Gone   at first they put out the commode seat up to let it sink in   it sat on the grass while kids passed by what would they know of rosebushes out front or the hospice nurse green dodge parked under the carport or about you, john leonard, a man of ninety-five in house slippers and morphine visiting your garden out back   a week ago on garbage night the invisible hand lined up some broken rakes and tumbledown shelves I let them lie seeking perfection   after your hip went last spring you took me hobbling through your backyard Where did you learn to garden like that? lilyponds with real frogs birdhouses nailed to the pines tarps to keep the benches dry   yesterday they put out a rototiller I took it at dusk felt the length of the wood for splinters or other irregularities felt the rusty blades with my thumb tamped it on the sidewalk   out fell the autumn leaves from the previous fall not this one for you were no longer protector of your lawn   I rolled it on the sidewalk this way and that hefted it over my head victorious at last and stabbed it bloodless in the soft of my hand.	"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." Hannah Arendt
	Editor's note:   At this time, The Tookany Review is accepting only the work of writers who are enrolled or have been enrolled in Cheltenham Adult School writing workshops. Home Page

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