Author Archives: Sarah

Gently does it

It takes time for the days to strengthen. We want the world to be golden and emerald when we open the door to a March morning – we want daffodils resting on clover, gilt eggs, the heat of day. But this light is lemon, the pale neutral of newborn swaddling blankets. This is still a chilly sun, but the breeze promises leaf buds and the answers to your prayers as a reward for your patience. There’s no need for a sacrifice – unless you want to give up everything that wastes your time, to make room for brighter beams when they at last shine across the path. Give thanks to the sun and the shadows while we are perfectly balanced, spinning in space. The story repeating here is undefined; the magic of renewal is one-size-fits-all. In Christ, they say, they are born again. But every spring we are all born again. Each rotation is a chance to greet the slow warming ready to run – lips parted, a mouthful of song.

Kate Garrett is a writer, witch, mama, and drummer who sometimes haunts 450 year old houses (as a heritage volunteer). Her next book, A View from the Phantasmagoria, is due out in October 2020 from Rhythm & Bones Press. She lives halfway up a hillside in Sheffield, England. www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk

Beads

My fascination with beads began when I was five years old. My dad
brought me an abacus to calculate my sums at school, but my
enchantment with numbers went beyond the mathematical. It became
associated with colorful globes with pivotal holes, rows of planets
whose interactions produced pleasant sounds like that of glass, with a
rapidity of motion that slides as in our playgrounds. As I grew older,
the sight of a string of beads in my grandmother’s hand gave those
orbs a mystic dimension, for they slowed their pace between her opal
fingers as she mumbled her daily invocations to God with a hushed
sound to express reverence. I thought my grandmother was making with
devotional beads her own prayer sums. Despite the slowing of their
motion and the subduing of their glass-like sound, they kept their
fascination in a child’s mind.

When I was in Australia hunting for a job, boarding myriads of
Melbourne’s trams, I always met the same old man, a very tall and
stout figure with snow-white hair and a silvery beard, covered all
over with fascinating rows of beads. He had them everywhere, round his
neck, his hands, and on his fingers. I called him the Beads Man. He
must have been a religious priest in some mystic cult. His eyes shone
with intelligence and gleamed as the beads with which he was heavily
adorned, his beaded armor.

I learnt lately that some people believe that beads ward off evil. In
some countries, babies have a blue bead attached to their clothes to
counter the pernicious effect of the wicked eye. I can understand that
the allure of a blue bead could distract the malicious eye, but can
beads defeat Satan with all his might. If they can, it must be the
power of prayers with which beads are endowed.

Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with
a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have
appeared in multiple venues including Down in the Dirt, Impspired
Magazine, Mad Swirl, A New Ulster, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Ink
Pantry, and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal.

Basins of Sound

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.

—Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian-born violinist

Once in a while,
the drifts of what I hear
arc above muddy sounds,
and their permanence is sensible,
I am glad to sharpen my listening.

Will I, like the young who need
high volume sound piped into their
ears until the throbs beat again,
attune my listening only to my whims?

My ears, catchment basins of sound
and filters against the cacophony
which is merely noise, increase keenly,
and reach beyond the familiar,
and learn anew as Heifetz did.

Phoebe Marrall, orphaned at the age of nine, was a survivor of The Depression and of a grueling childhood. When she died in 2017 at the age of eighty-four, her daughters Jane Hendrickson and Camille Komine inherited hundreds of poems she had written. They remained unpublished during her lifetime, but it is the intention of her daughters that a collection be compiled for readers to appreciate. Relief, Have You a Name? is currently a work in progress, being edited by Gayle Jansen Beede.

snowdrops on ash wednesday

she kissed my forehead at night
when the world was drowsy and
mrs. beasley and I were snuggled
safe down deep beneath cotton-cool
sheets and moon-yellow blanket
a lone snowdrop tickling my
furrowed bedtime brow
prophet of winter’s death
a mother’s tender-fierce
twilight touch marking me

her fingers that served our
sunday in remembrance bread
brushed my forehead
weightless as a feather
floating across my face
perhaps from a house
finch escaping the hiss of
a neighbor’s big yellow tomcat
to dust you shall return

kiss mrs beasley too i demanded
and she always did but not
without a fuss since mrs beasley
was a doll and not real at all except
her berry blush lipstick left
a puckered seal and
i was reassured since i
could never see my own
forehead but mrs beasleys
smudged face held my eyes
until night danced with stardust

.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a PCUSA minister.

Dear Dreamer

Deer singing the world into being
Deer rolling the rocks from the cave door
Antlers emerging from the chinks of the flaring woodstove
A beloved’s tracks
In my heart gathered
On the moon tonight
Eating night’s highest flowers and blue pools
Milkweed and moon
Shedding the snows of life
Quilts of seed
Coats of armor decomposed
Deer people of the shedding sun
People of the moon deer
Deer of my heart of husk
Dancing among the fallen shrouds
Deer forest of torches
Dancing into being the foxfire ground
Deer tipping its head in the foxfire forest of antlers found
Eclipsing all human tools
Deer giving the shrouds back
To the waiting moon

John Rock grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan in the United States and spent many years making and showing experimental films in San Francisco and on the shores of Lake Superior working on poetry.  He is the author of the poetry collections DANCING THE SOLITUDES and THE DIARY OF SNOW ARISEN and the novels REPORT THE EARTH, THE NIGHT FLYING COLLECTIVE, TO THE WELL OF EARTH and ORDERS OF THE MOON.  Books and audio recordings at www.johnrockpoetry.com

Renewal

The sheets at Frances Street
Are as soft as a lover’s caress.

I’ll just stay here today, I think.
A bed-in, protest of sorts
Against venturing out
Once again into the
Unknown of the day.

But the sheets have a serious rival.
Through the curtain gap
I glimpse golden light,
The kind that beckons
“Come, see! Look at
Paradise found!”

I obey, and sleepwalk
To the kitchen kettle.
Soon, with my inky black tea
I step out the back door.
Bask in the sun’s rays,
Dip toes in the pool.
Marvel at the jungleness of our yard.
Stop to catch the scent of gardenia
But it’s only an imposter.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Sigh. Sigh again.
Elusive peace lives here, I think.
How lucky am I
To have found its nest?

Ann Weil is a former teacher and professor. Her third act includes writing poetry that explores and honors the continuum of human emotion.

No Good Meditation

6:10 a.m. Semi-lotus, hands in lap, eyes front. Focus soft. Chin tucked. Go.

Sitting. I am sitting.

That’s what Zen masters tell us to focus on. Wait, no, there’s no I involved. Just sitting.

Sitting.

I shall have shredded wheat this morning. Sumatran coffee. Drifting. Hurt’s still there. Wonder if I can ever forgive them. Or myself, when I look in the mirror. I look in mirrors and see a woman’s eyes. Eyes, window to the soul. Cliché. Come back.

I am sitting.

Sitting.

On my forearm: stink bug? They’re in the house. Sit, goddamn it.

Sitting. Sitting.

Sitting zazen. Zazen eases depression, said that magazine. Send them one of my essays? No, not shredded wheat: the new Kashi cereal I picked up. Maybe a combination. With coffee.

Coffee.

Come back. Glance at the clock. Five more minutes. Must hurry. Sitting. Sittingsittingsitting.

No, not like that.

Time.

Bow. Up. Creak to my feet. Bow thrice: to Buddha, to Jesus, to Thérèse of Lisieux—my BFF, Catholic saint extraordinaire, who said, “I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.”

Wonder what she meant by good. Maybe she looks down from heaven and sees what I’ve done here and thinks bad. Yeah, but this is zazen: no good, no bad, just is. At least I’ve learned that much.

I think.

#  #  #

A writer, speaker, and spiritual director, John Backman writes about ancient spirituality and the unexpected ways it can affect postmodern life. This includes a book (Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart) and personal essays in such places as Tiferet Journal, Amethyst Review, and Belmont Story Review.

Her Own Kind of Cloister

In the empty twilight of an overcast Monday afternoon, Elizabeth took the Lord’s name in vain. Loudly. Aggressively. The whole sanctuary reverberated with her “God fucking damn it!” It bounced off every pane of stained glass, every sacred icon, every wood-carved cross. It seeped into the vestments of the altar. It greased the candles.

A goose-egg pushed up under the skin where she had cracked her forehead on the pew while polishing the linoleum beneath. She saw stars, which, until that moment, she’d thought only happened in cartoons. Her breath caught in her chest; she felt dizzy. She clutched her dust rag in one hand and the broom handle in the other as she eased onto the seat behind her. Good God she needed a drink. She hadn’t thought she would so soon. Not here. The dispatcher at the cleaning service where she worked had put Elizabeth on the church circuit permanently. Quiet, reliable, respectful, responsible. Trusted not to nick valuables from the vestry. All reasons why she sat there now, with a splitting headache, blaspheming and craving alcohol.

At first, she had thought she might like the new assignment. The noble reverence of tidying-up the house of God. Or rather, as it turned out, seven houses of God. Scheduled by management for 31 hours per week to avoid having to pay her benefits, she’d have to bust her ass to get them all in appropriate condition by Sunday morning. Every week. She hadn’t thought it’d be bad. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. In fact, hard work in a solitary, spiritual environment seemed like just the kind of thing she needed to get her life back on track. Her own kind of cloister.

But she hadn’t really known what she was getting into. The buildings were old. Dust settled on every surface at a pace that matched the silent snowfall outside. Candlewax drips pocked the burgundy carpets. Smears of peanut butter tainted 80% of the surfaces in the nursery. At least one Styrofoam cup, half filled with pungent coffee and ringed in old lady lipstick, lay tipped over in every. Single. Trash can. And the stench in the bathrooms curdled the air to the point she could not even imagine how God fearing people could make such a stink.

When she’d spoken to her sponsor about how the position was not at all like she thought it would be, he reframed the situation for her and gave her a different perspective: She had steady work. Work that was safe, fairly paid, and respectable. She had the health and well-being to complete the tasks asked of her. She was quite far ahead of so many that he sponsored. She just needed to get used to this new life. This better life.

The stars faded, dawn breaking. Elizabeth fingered the new topography of her scalp and took a deep breath. She stood and found her balance steady. Padding noiselessly down the carpeted aisle, she made her way toward the back stairs that connected the altar to the kitchen below. Maybe she could find an ice pack in the freezer to take the swelling down. But she didn’t make it to the steps. The unassuming closet tucked in a tiny room just off the pulpit distracted her. She could feel the pull of the elements through the knotty pine door. The ungreased hinges and hitch in the latch announced her trespass.

She wasn’t much for theology. She didn’t know if Christ was really here; if it was somehow really blood in that clear glass vessel. If it was, it could just as easily be her own. Poured out and sitting, locked away, on a dusty shelf. Waiting to be consumed. Warm and sweet, the wine slid down her throat. As she finished the bottle, the ache in her head migrated to some chamber deep down inside that she could never quite tidy up.

Marsha Timblin received and MFA from Chatham University and her work has appeared in The Occulum, Cold Creek Review and Boston Accent Lit. She writes fiction from her home near Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her husband, son and Shiba inu puppy. Follow her on Twitter @MarshaLena.

Pan-Cake Day

Winter’s time is running out.
We’ve got it in a corner, trapped and on the ropes.

Its fangs are out, now,
Weaving and striking for the throat,
Claws out
And pale with desperation.

That final slice of predatory cold
Glints in its eyes,
On the windows,
In the fires,
While winter waits on its whiplash spine
Intent on the creeping ring of flame
We lit to kill it.

It knows that everyone will eat its blackened skin
Bleached on the bone and crispy with lemon

And now its time is running out
With everybody’s finger on the trigger.
The cold is cowering and everyone is laughing
As we shuffle forward in our huddled lines
Holding hands while winter spits
In our eyes, looking for the undone button, the naked flesh.

But it has no hair
And it is running out of time
And it knows it.

Edward Alport is a proud Essex Boy and retired teacher. He occupies his time as a gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry published in a variety of webzines and magazines. When he has nothing better to do he posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.

Hibernal

Late February, the darkness
ecumenical beneath the night’s new moon.
Another norther filigrees

fallen leaves and windowpanes
with a delicate, light frost.
Why draw a line between

the living and the dead
on such a night, when the darkness
within everything everywhere

acknowledges itself?
One stares through a window
at the allusive, bituminous view,

a ghost of breath upon the glass,
once again the unborn child who,
after six months in the womb,

opens his eyes for the first time
and finds the comprehensive darkness
the mother holds within herself.

Todd Copeland’s poems have appeared in The Journal, High Plains Literary Review, Southern Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Sewanee Theological Review, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Antigonish Review, and Columbia Poetry Review, among other publications. He won Descant’s Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award in 2018. He lives in Waco, Texas.