Iglesia 1953 no one sweeping the stairs no one comes and goes no services posted a soundless congregation (curious thoughts of a young child) on this German-Irish-Italian block, Dutchtown’s misplaced immigrant foreign, mysterious, marks time in silence–– alongside Lou’s butcher shop, lacking sacramental staging, this small chapel–– more a landscape where people pass by, hear […]

Holding Open  “The gates made of light swing open. You see in.” -Rumi I want to enter the Gate of the Beloved. Wait for me there Holding open the gates of light. Your blue eyes beckoning, Bid me enter your city Ancient, lovely, petrified. I enter your gates with offerings — Pomegranates and honey dates. […]

A Hummingbird Suite I . . . and their image was impressed upon land the rain scarcely knew, in limestone that endures the passing of the sun, so they can be seen by the gods of light when their time comes to seek refuge on Earth. II In the age before, an evil spirit gambled […]

Granted Indigo dusk and the wide consolation of night. Dawn’s unburdened light and breath of day. * Before I woke you brought me here to thought and longing that my heart may know it is a heart.   Melanie Green is the author of two collections of poetry, Determining Sky, and Continuing Bridge, available through […]

Heavenly Bodies God is not real or maybe he is or maybe she is or maybe God is dead. Perhaps God is a baby sick and frail with an empty face and a silent deafening mouth begging, asking, needing. God does not have eyes, neither do the trees, but God watches me when I stare […]

Achalay (Rejoice), For Music is Euphoria of the Soul In the Chiquitania, deep in the heart of the Amazon basin, in plains bisected by rivers, dotted with lakes and swamps, flooded half the year, the inhabitants built vast earthworks— raised beds for farming, drained by ditches, fish weirs, and canals and zigzag causeways permitting year-round […]

A Loud Cacophony recall the quiet of churches the precipice of streets with the spokey sound of bikes while a parenthesis of quiet is poked through but not lasting trucks, trains, fading clatter not so now noise moves through and around and again around carried in pockets or hands or in clouds, somehow–– the world […]

For the New Year    A Rosh Hashana reflection Comes the reckoning: Who shall live, and who shall die. Now, as the finest of Fall days fade, as our steps shatter leaves into dust, and the chaff of woods and lawns let loose attar of toast, the nose of ancient blood-red wine; now let us […]

Lost Sounds of St Kilda You are here: the past dividing the discord of a fulmar catch fowling for gannets in psalm-soaked gorse gathering storm songs Scots and Norse. On the verge of the world: cave of spells still rock of ruins moving first page of Exodus left sleeping whitewashed on a brae of weeping. […]