
Yellow Mama E zine
Issue #115
Wednesday morning on the island with friends: Poem by Craig Kirchner

Art by Darren Blanch © 2026
Wednesday morning
on the island with friends
by Craig Kirchner
Coffee brewing at 6:45 and the ants beat me to the sugar.
The size of two pinheads, but there are hundreds,
in an important trek to their morning compulsion.
Four friends, two couples, agreed the night before
that the sunrise at 7:12 over the ocean is worth
getting up a bit early and is only a block away.
The waves are a powerful that is regular, like heartbeat,
only louder and forever. The marriage of ocean and sky,
light and dark grey merge to mime infinity.
A slow-yellow progresses, the low clouds light bright white
and purple-pink. The crescent pierces the horizon—
nothing compares, there is no metaphor for this event.
There is the awe, and the ants, small, smaller than I’ve ever seen,
so concerned with their sugar, perhaps realizing
the shabby arrogance of Pawleys, but not the majesty at its beach.
“Wednesday morning on the island with friends” was originally published at the Journal of Expressive Writing, August ’24.
Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, FL, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. Craig's writing has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, Yellow Mama, About Place Journal, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. More about Craig can be found on Bluesky, and there is an interview up at Spillwords.
Darren Blanch, Aussie creator of visions which tell you a tale long after first glimpses have teased your peepers. With early influence from America's Norman Rockwell to show life as life, Blanch has branched out mere art form to impact multi-dimensions of color and connotation. People as people, emotions speaking their greater glory. Visual illusions expanding the ways and means of any story.
Digital arts mastery provides what Darren wishes a reader or viewer to take away in how their own minds are moved. His evocative stylistics are an ongoing process which sync intrinsically to the expression of the nearby written or implied word he has been called upon to render.
View the vivid energy of IVSMA (Darren Blanch) works at: www.facebook.com/ivsma3Dart, YELLOW MAMA, Sympatico Studio - www.facebook.com/SympaticoStudio, DeviantArt - www.deviantart.com/ivsma and launching in 2019, as Art Director for suspense author / intrigue promoter Kate Pilarcik's line of books and publishing promotion - SeaHaven Intrigue Publishing-Promotion.