Monthly Archives: August 2026

An Unlikely Pair

And Noah released a raven

Genesis: 8:6

I

Before he released the dove, he dispatched me: thick-billed, large-bodied, of the genus corvus, a ground feeder, unclean.

Raven

I flew for days over a punished world of water, cawing out to God, searching for that land where once bloomed the lilies. No rainbow yet. Just acres of ocean. I did not return.

II

He could wait no longer, and so he sent me, the clean one, the pure one, the holy one, the soon to be symbolic one,  the dumb one with the small nib and tiny eyes.

Dove

I flew for seven days, came back; I flew for seven days, came back, an olive branch in my beak. Soon a rainbow. Then a promise. 

III

I did not return because I had found ground, seeded it, finally felt the sun. The olive tree grew   and when she arrived, we perched on its limbs.   

Peace

She wanted to stay. Go back I said, and our feathers touched, a promise made, an unlikely pair.

Love

John Hopkins is a retired English teacher and active Benedictine Oblate out of Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts. He has written three books of poetry: Celtic Nan, Make My Heart a Pomegranate, and With Caught Rain.

Matins

Rose early to view the sky turn
dark ash to peacock blue
paler by degrees to powder blue
then powder turned to lead
          a cold heavy metal sky

and I retreated back to bed where
Ovid padded bedding properly
settled down to snuggle and
turning on his motor of attunement
          commenced to purr

Oh the rumble of the inbreath in
the tuning pour of outbreath out
he played his instrument
maestro that he is
          and plugged me into the day

so up and to the window now
the breath the ins & outs
the gentle reach gather pour
pulling Qi and from that muddy pool
          summon up the sun

Gregory Bell writes because. He’s authored hybrid poetry book, Looking for Will: My Bardic Quest with Shakespeare and two award-winning plays. Honors include the 2019 Kowit Poetry Prize & 2023 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Prize. He facilitates Green Poets Workshop at Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA, is recently published in Scientific American, Gaia Lit and ‘In the Black / In the Red’ Anthology, Helicon Nine. Oh, and–whoa!–he has a poem on the moon with NASA’s Lunar Codex Project.

On the Edge of Osceola Forest 

Invasive jasmine vine,
fragrant as the nard
that anoints Your feet,
white as the garment 
of light that robes You—
climbs the scaled bark 
of a grooved trunk
and strangles a longleaf pine.

Priscilla Bettis is an avid reader and a joyful writer. Priscilla lives in small-town Texas with her two-legged and four-legged family members. She enjoys writing short stories and poems inspired by her awe of the Divine and love for fellow human beings. She is the author of Whispers of a Southern Moon, a short-story and poetry collection, and she’s currently working on a novella set in Alaska. Priscilla is a book reviewer at The Well Read Fish: https://thewellreadfish.com.

The Stonemason
 
The base must pack level, or
be rock, or for naught. The materials chosen
with precision—pebble as well as marble. Each notion
I cut with granite patience, for
or against the grain.
 
Grasp me that I may grasp the higher calling.
You sculpt the words that, together, tamp & pillar
the monument. Let my hand dip mud & putty, rotate,
chip, carve the line.
 
The arcades & arches point,
the vault must wink to heaven, stone must criss-
cross with sky. I am the notch of a hidden geometry.
The cornerstone is the starting point
 
and the end, pivots on the perspective—
cathedral wall or crypt.
 
Each must be etched
& cradled into mortar, scored with gypsum’s
embrace, gemstone prayers for each
to hold & be held—it’s a body
we build, enduring
layer by mineral
layer.
 
Let this limestone be sanctuary,
these starstones not broken by barrage of bomb
or bombast—let this home shelter
the demolished. Let these stones sing
 
to the sorrowing & may the song
be you.

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). She is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books). Her poems have appeared in America, Scientific American, Sugar House Review, RHINO, The Christian Century, Verse Daily and elsewhere.

Shape of the Wind


Now, I take up the task I was born to find,
here, where the light says nothing about tomorrow.
How happily I lose myself in a sea of higher being
until the rivers become my hands
and the mountain of my body lifts itself to pierce the clouds.

I have fallen in love with a secret even the mouse knows,
and the slow tortoise munching the grass:
this world wasn’t born to sorrow.
It is a song made real in the rising of a thousand voices.
We are kites that in our dancing reveal the shape of the wind.

Doubt drops easily from my shoulders now,
a ragged cloak I was taught to wear that no longer fits me.
Naked as pure light, I whisper my smile to the stars.
May everyone who sees me
recognize their soul.

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Indianapolis Review, Hole in the Head Review, The Sunlight Press, Delmarva Review, New Flash Fiction Review and elsewhere. Poetry publications include A Summons on the Wind (2023, Kelsay Books) and King of Beers (2025, Rinky Dink Press). He lives in the foothills of South Mountain with his wife and daughter and two birdwatching cats.

A Sermon on Jellyfish 

King’s Cross, upper gallery 
we sip watery cofffee.
Waves of arrivals and departures 
bob psychedelic bonnets below.  

I said the wrong thing; it flared him
into a parachute of contempt 
with a cascade of pellucid curls,
ringing bells of animus, 
ribbons of savage stings.


I floundered on the abyss, paralysed
while he pulsated at distance.
The poison which circulated left me
in the midst
of a mass of Pacific sea nettles.
Those dark mushrooms that narcotise
with feelings of inadequacy.
Even when torpid, 
their cells resuscitate
to wound the aura again.
How to subjugate the smack 
of jellyfish;
their umbrellas of orange gold 
pain lined with a love 
that feels dead?
One day instead 
of protecting my skin
I agreed to let the toxic feelers in,
explore the origin of the sting.
and began to understand
That his intense distress   
had produced an umbrella 
of uprootedness
which could not suck the marrow 
from my vertebrae. 
The shame 
eating away at me
needed to stop 
taking things personally.


I read Matthew 5/38-48 NIV.
Jelly no longer threatened. 
The other cheek beckoned.

Kate Hill-Charalambides is an English teacher of dual nationality who lives in Alsace. She has worked for an association against human trafficking which is recognized as being of public utility. Her poetry focuses on human rights, spirituality and feminism. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in DREICH 3 SEASON 9 (No.99), SNAKESKIN, Cerasus Poetry #4 and #5 ; Piker Press; The Dawn Treader, The Hyacinth Review and Outposts.