As we release the fall issue, I wanted to describe the changing of leaves, the turning of seasons, the first hint of a crisp note in the air, but it’s impossible not to acknowledge the recent heat. In many areas, we’ve seen recent temperatures rise into the triple digits. Here in Central Florida, our days have alternated between the heat and torrential rain, and I don’t think there’s been an afternoon in recent memory when we haven’t had the lightning alarm sending everyone seeking shelter.

We selected the cover of this month’s issue before the monarch butterfly was classified as endangered by the IUCN, but this news was hardly a surprise: the decreasing populations of these and other pollinators is something environmental groups have long warned us about. And there’s something of this tension–on the one side, a known and knowing loss, and on the other, a desire for pleasure and consumption–that’s present in this issue. Alice Teeter’s poem “In some ways it is worse now” begins with the speaker’s claim that “wisdom gets caught by the wind flies / out the window,” and Donna Glee Williams’s “These Days” opens with these lines: “Loving the world / is like loving someone in hospice / immeasurably dear to you.” But there are also moments in this issue where there is pleasure in spite of (or even in the very causes of) that loss. Daniel Edward Moore’s “Glory and Back” acknowledges that “the ground is loved / by fallen things,” and in this issue’s conclusion, the speaker of Jennifer Jordan’s “Airport Song” celebrates “the exhilaration of / sleek jets dropping through twilight.”

In Issue Twenty-Six, you’ll find poetry and prose from Ed Ahern, Tom Barlow, V.A. Bettencourt, Becky Boling, John Brantingham, Ervin Brown, Melinda Coppola, Jess Gersony, D.E. Greene, Rob Hardy, Brooke Hoppstock-Mattson, M.J. Iuppa, Karen Luke Jackson, DB Jonas, Jennifer Jordan, Alex Kraft, Sister Lou Ella, D.S. Maolalai, Daniel Edward Moore, Marion, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Richard Rubin, Alice Teeter, Jeffrey Thompson, and Donna Glee Williams. The issue’s cover art is a piece by the award-winning photographer Roger Camp.

Digital and print versions of our fall issue are available through Mag Cloud. Digital versions of the issue are free, and perfect-bound copies of the issue will cost twelve dollars. You can order print copies and read the issue online at this link.