Author Archives: Sarah

Love Letter
 
If love had an address, it would stifle.
We cannot tether it for it is sovereign 
like everything in the universe.
Be it the clouds or breeze that 
doesn’t have an address but 
delights all in their pulchritude.

It is in the silence of the sky 
and the transmuting leaves of autumn.
It is in and around us if we 
can see through our souls.

But the earthly form has an address.
I can only deliver the letter if 
he opens his inner door.

Over the years, I have become 
the address where he lives,
And one day, my friend will 
set on a pilgrimage home.

 

Alka Balain was born in India. Her writings have appeared/forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review, DREICH, The Green Journal, Poetry India, Visual Verse, Setu Bilingual, The Hooghly Review, AlSphere, Shot Glass, Amethyst, The Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Alka’s poems have been shortlisted for the Glass House Poetry Award 2024, Poetry Festival Singapore-Catharsis 2023, Wordweavers Contest 2022, and Wordsmith Award 2021.She is the author of Parijat Petals, of longing and seeking (May 2024, Hawakal Publishers). 

My Late Brother Appears on My Apple Watch

He is wearing bib overalls, an owl on his shoulder,
the literal ghost in the machine.  An accidental tap 
on its face, a quick twist of the wrist -- 
my watch dislodges my carefully calculated settings
and Edwin appears, fresh from my Favorites.

Every time I think ‘he’s been gone twenty years,’
it appears he finds a way to remind me:
we abide in everything, whether we like it or not – 
just be sure to wear a leather glove on your hand 
if the bird who chooses you has talons.

He and his great horned owl, me and my crows.
Our everyday familiars, never summoned but appearing,
hungry and sure about everything that matters --  
bringing feathered peace that passes all understanding
and bony beaks that take all our unburnt offerings.  




Judy Ireland is the author of Cement Shoes, a poetry collection that won the Sinclair Poetry Prize in 2013.  Her poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Calyx, Saranac Review, Eclipse, Cold Mountain, Coe Review, SWWIM, the South Florida Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including the Best Indie Lit New England anthology and Voices from the Fierce Intangible World.  She is a Poetry Editor and Reading Series Producer for the South Florida Poetry Journal, Co-Director of Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, and she teaches at Palm Beach State College.

A Tree

Touch a tree!
Feel the scabrous skin
painted with moss--
shadowing blue to green.
Touch the leaves--
mature and tender shoots!
Touch the roots
where they fall
below the ground.
Feel it all,
every aspect
and tell me what 
it is you have found.
See it
as a whole,
and then in part.
See it
not by eye and hand
but with the heart--
And then,
and only then:
tell me
what it is
you truly see?
Tell me
what it is we call... 
A Tree?

Dean Schreck is a retired and relocated Long Islander who has been writing since the age of fourteen.  His work has appeared over the years in Zephyr, Voices International, Literary Hatchet, New Myths, Penumbric, Magical Blend, Owlfight, WeirdBook, Penumbric, Eldritch Tales, Littoral, Space and Time, New Myths, Trembling with Fear…to name a few.  He has also done work in Comic Books–Bloodscent (Comico 1988); Twilight Zone #7 (Now Comics 1992) and 2 Tales for Marvel/Epic Hellraiser series.  Dean is a long time student of the spiritual and paranormal.

The Calling

I hear her song in
accidental melodies that harmonize
with breath of wind through leaves and branches.
An invocation of form and pattern
that blends complexity
with elementary truth
and calls me into
that infinite space between
my protons and my neutrons.

How can I not follow her
down the rugged mountain
to the shore of Llyn Tegid?

Together we ride the spiraled wave of Awen,
faster and faster
chasing the seed,
shifting and sailing
from earth
to water
to air —
a greyhound pursuing a hare
an otter hunting a salmon
a hawk descending upon a wren
a black hen gulping a kernel of corn. 

Diane Perazzo is a poet, legacy writing facilitator and eco witch in the Reclaiming tradition. She is a co-creator of the art and poetry exhibit Sowing the Future: Women Farmers +EcoAgriculture and author of the chapbook Six Poems for Healing (illustrated by the late amara hollowbones) and the children’s novel The Secret in the Ravine (available on Amazon). Her poetry has been published in earth-based spirituality and ecology-focused online and print publications.  

Draw Near

You, the masterful Artist,
breathing life into life into me.
You stitch the cosmos into
intricate garb, enrobing Yourself
with galaxies. On Your fingertips are nebulas, yet 
in Your palms, Your people find shelter.
You paint the depths of the velvety seas,
bestowing wonder and mystery upon every pearl,
colors as yet undiscovered flowing from Your palette.
Oh God, who else would create--
who else could create--
this dazzling domain
I am blessed enough
to call home?
Who else but You
would draft so carefully, so artfully,
arranging every last, perpetual detail,
from the flames of faraway suns
to each bristle in the paintbrush
held safely in the hand of the artist
who embodies Your mitzvot?
Oh God, who else would
have the compassion to 
place syllables and sounds 
on the tongues of ancient peoples,
to coax chaos into language
so that my ancestors could praise Your name?
Oh, God, let me study at Your easel,
let me read at Your bedside,
and God, let me love the world a little better
for You having drawn me into it at all.

Katherine Orfinger is a writer, artist, and MFA candidate at Rosemont College. She holds a BA in English from Stetson University. Katherine’s work has appeared in Beyond Queer Words, Outrageous Fortune, You Might Need to Hear This, Touchstone, Aeolus, and others. Katherine draws inspiration from her Floridian hometown and Jewish faith. She currently resides in Pennsylvania. 

Thunder Sounds Morning Sky Alive


Thunder sounds morning sky alive.
Lightning flashes – and for a moment –
the dark is parted and a line 
between Then and Now is clarified.

I am reminded of what I am not.

There is no feeling of loss or hope –
no call for my response.

I only watch the morning sky divide.

Rain soon follows to wash away 
all noise, except its own sensation.

I am passive as stone.
Sound bounces off me – bounces
between the felt and the imagined –
the way light has come and gone.

Ken Hada‘s latest collection is Come Before Winter (Turning Plow Press, 2023). His book, Contour Feathers, (Turning Plow Press, 2021), received the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. More at: kenhada.org

Salt of the Sea
 
My head dips
below the surface of the water.
a cornucopia of colors, 
sunflower yellow, cobalt blue 
move through the shimmering turquoise.
Piscine creatures with electric glowing stripes and
fins like twirling lace.
An iridescent parrot fish feasts on 
blooms of coral with its beak-like mouth.
 
I stop breathing
to better hear the sound.
Could it really be the voices of humpback
whales, who come here each year to calve?
Life speaks to life.
The sea is a garden, 
born of water and spirit.
 
Shafts of light stipple
across coral and the pale sand floor. 
I am held in light, suspended.  
No longer an observer,
salty as the sea, my blood, this body, 
belong here too. 
Baptism. Communion. Embrace.
Let these tears flow into a dance
of all that is holy. 
I am here now.
Here at last.

Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan is an author who lives in Alaska. She has published six books of non-fiction, completed a historical novel, and writes poetry when the soul calls for such. Two of her poems were recently accepted for the anthology Alaska Literary Field Guide. Her essay “Crossing the Wild River” appears in Deep Wild Journal: Writing from the Backcountry 2024.

             I Ching 

                    I

                      A thread -
                         intuition
                         memories, ravelled by time


                    draws me on 
                      to synagogues
                         universities
                           to poetry


                       Not love
               which requires actual flesh
                    but something invisible
                       a small apocalypse
                           of learning


                       I cherish
                  these threads, collect them
                      they become part
                         of my tapestry
                            
                           but some grow cold
                              neglected, a bitterness
                                  like the sediment in wine


                                      II

                          No sign post
                      no billboard
                           no answer sheet 
                                to let me know how I did
              
                            no well-worn trail  
                       just the woods 
                          familiar
                            changing
                              thicker now                                   
                                 more overgrown
                            

                           the trees

                     sometimes up close 
                       blocking the sun
                         sometimes       a small clearing 
                              with a bit of a view


                      the exercise       
                            feels good
                                   the ruminations  
                                          keep me occupied


                     I think     I can find my way back -
                                over the rise           
                                                across the stream

                           Looking back 
                             can tell us 
                          who we were
                            for a while

                         Looking ahead
                       a game of chance 
                           with rules -
                                age
                              inspiration 
                               fatigue
                              opportunity
 

                        the flicker of light
                 when fate and aspiration 
                            collide

Zav Levinson studied English literature at McGill University and Université de Montréal (M.A., Études Anglaises).  A trained cabinetmaker, he ran the studio arts workshop for the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University for 33 years. He is poetry co-editor of JONAH magazine  and co-founder of the 2-Susan’s Poetry Circle.  His second chapbook, reverb, from Sky of Ink Press, was published in the fall of 2022. His poems have appeared most recently in Montreal Writes, Canadian Jewish News and Dreamers Magazine as well as in the QWF fundraising chapbook My Island, My City and in the 2 Susans Poetry Circle 6^th anniversary chapbook What Lasts.

How We Play Opposites

With a first look outside at a grey morning,
we betray our attitudes
toward contrasts and opposites: those 

in the majority probably on the side of light.

I have learned from nocturnal predators
something of the utility of darkness—

night makes it secure for them
to hunt without themselves being hunted.

Have come to understand

the play of opposites against
each other—in the ER coin-toss of triage,

at recess choosing sides.

If you see my eyes closed, Sundays, don’t
fault the dazzle of stained-glass,
or a brilliant illumination of the text—

I’ve conceded holy darkness equal time.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire.  Recent work appears in Red Eft Review, Wilderness House, Bookends Review, and The Windhover. His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.  He is a trail maintainer for the Lakes Region Conservation Trust.

The Suffering of Others

So close, your eyes touch them
your ears hear their pleadings

but your legs cannot approach
nor your arms extend

your words falling futile at your feet
so close, so close.

You turn your eyes away—still
they crowd your silences, your headphones

awaken you at midnight
to tell you their nightmares till morning.

You pray for them—trying to ease your own pain
by handing them off to God, fate, history—

They do not go away, cannot, will not. And you know
for their sake and yours you must not ease your pain

but grasp it, examine it for the truth it reveals,
and draw it close to your heart

so close you can touch them, so close you can
send shock waves of love to the core of all being.

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry appears in Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Midwest Zen, Soul-Lit, and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.