Author Archives: Sarah

Cristo Redentor
          jazz by Donald Byrd
 
A haunting chorale
laced with sonorous chords
leads me through winding hills
to deliver me
into the narrow valley
that holds Westphalia,
where a church spire high on a hill
rises from surrounding trees to be seen
by all who pass on the highway
below, both wayward and devout.
 
As I leave that steeple behind,
Donald Byrd’s trumpet,
slow, and almost sultry, moves in,
dances with those voices,
and Duke Pearson’s piano teases,
seems to offer a revelation.
 
Rich Fountain lies just down the road,
waits to follow suit, its church
again totally obscured above me, 
save the lines of its spire
rising above the trees.
 
When the road from there
opens to a wide valley,
I almost expect to see
Sugarloaf Mountain on the horizon
with the arms of Christ the Redeemer
opened wide, expecting me to come home.
 
Once baptized,
that boat long since capsized,
I still know all the rituals,
mouth the words at weddings
and funerals, though I know
they’ll never be uttered at mine.
 
As if knowing that ship has sailed,
trumpet, piano, and chorale
fade into the distance
as I head down the road to Belle.
 

 
Ken Gierke writes primarily in free verse and haiku. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as Amethyst Review, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Breakfast, and Silver Birch Press. Glass Awash, his first collection of poetry, was published by Spartan Press in 2022. His poetry collection, Heron Spirit, was published in April 2024.  His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/
 

almond blossoms

After the cold's unblunted knife,
a tenuous gracility
resembling a linen coif
is tangled on the almond tree.

Help me to stand as nude of line
where the sky nailed my summering,
as starkly witnessed as this sign
the year hammered on nothing --

as mute a token as this maimed,
unapprehending winter tree.
A dark menorah, till enflamed
with white-intense fragility.

Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry for as long as she can remember. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various places — most lately Ekstasis, Shotglass Journal, Vita Poetica. She writes regularly for Story Warren. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood books.

Eddie's Knees

I always forget about Eddie’s knees.
I pray for peace, of course, I always pray 
For peace, and always for the sorry souls
I see along the street whose lives unroll
And more and more impact me by degrees;
For friends as well, their joys and their regrets,
And Eddie, too, but somehow still forget
To say a little something for his knees.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, Amethyst Review, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, America Magazine, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was the 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.

When

I was a name
	when I was a body inside a name 

I sounded  
	like the sigh of willow or hazel

a breath,  holy repetition 
	as I crossed the field 

Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. Her second full collection Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World was published by Blue Diode in March.

When You Don’t Know What Else to Do 

Shhhh. Look. 

Left eye, soul eye
secret eye looks down
to the white and black 
of the Sphinx moth 
nestled in the primrose leaves,
to the moss-covered rock
aglow in morning dew,
to the hole between tree roots
hiding a cluster of fungi.

Right eye,
turns up
to the towering sunflowers
filling the field,
to that October parade of maple leaves
lighting up the river road,
the trembling of finches 
cutting a dark swath 
across the cloudless sky.

Sometimes you must pack 
everything you need 
in one bag. Board a plane
to a land an ocean away,
sit on the edge of a canyon
watch the sun change the sky.

Sometimes you need to
gently pick the grass
stuck between the hot pink
dianthus blades in your garden bed.

Sometimes only your embrace 
of midnight’s pitch, eyes wide
everyone else asleep or gone
searching the internal darkness,
sometimes only then
can you see. 

Liza Halley works as an elementary school Library Teacher. Liza helped establish the Poet Laureate position in her hometown of Arlington, MA. She is the co-founder of Write Around Portland, a nonprofit based in Portland, OR that amplifies voices and builds community through our writing workshops, literary programming, books, and readings.She loves to build community through the written word, be it through poetry, zines, or comics. She has a poem that was recently published in Braided Way Magazine: Faces and Voices of Spiritual Practice. 

Ordinary Miracle 

The columbine that self-seeded, 
squeezing into a crack of shallow dirt 
in my home’s concrete foundation 

has flourished. Dozens of red 
and yellow bell-shaped flowers 
dangle above my dog’s water bowl, 

feeding hungry hummingbirds. 
The same plant, Aquilegia canadensis, 
that I carefully planted five feet away, 

in rich soil with optimum conditions, 
has petered out, returning as a diminished 
version of itself each year. 

I’m sure there’s a lesson here, 
but instead of trying to figure it out, 
I relish this ordinary miracle.

Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is featured in On the Seawall, Rust & Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Whale Road Review, and many other publications. She’s an assistant poetry editor for The Night Heron Barks and anassociate editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Sheila lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. You can read her work atwww.sheilawellehan.com .

Light

“What’s that light?” she had asked of the faint glow that persisted when the hanging torch doubling as tent reading light was off. “Is it a car?” That had quickly been ruled out. When the airbed was found to be slowly deflating three hours later, we discovered the real, glorious cause. We had been reading under canvas while the sky finally shed the last flickers of day, but the replacement that  now confronted us was so big and breathtaking, it felt like God himself had let our airbed down so we would see it. They were all there, the formations faintly visible from home, the plough, the Southern Cross, bold and bright, and all the unheralded stars too, flickering with varying intensity in the spaces between, accompanied by the sense of billions more in the distant beyond. And right over us, the Milky Way spanned the curve of the heavens like a celestial archway. After that, my heart was light against the hard ground.

Grant Shimmin is a South African-born poet resident in New Zealand, who counts humanity, nature, and their relationship as poetic passions. He has work published/forthcoming at Roi Faineant Press, Does it Have Pockets?, The Hooghly Review, underscore_magazine, Amethyst Review, Blue Bottle Journal, Epistemic Lit and elsewhere.

                          Hearth-Song

“Then Wisdom unlocked her word-hoard again, 
sang her own truths and spoke thus.”*

How I long for the joy of fellowship
In the halls of my heart—
To hear the poets sing,
Filling my hearth with sweet dream-craft,
To bask between the other bench-sitters,
Warm and safe

As the storm howls outside the door.
For in the dark forests of my brain,
Monsters roam and ravage my thoughts,
Twisting them ‘til they become 
Monsters themselves—
Doomed to be lone-walkers,
Disconnected from wisdom
And wandering in woe.

Flee not from me, friends,
In the halls of my heart.
Nestle nearer the fire
And see its warmth gleaming
On the golden rings you wear—
Tokens of friendship,
Tales of glory taken together.

For sad is the man who sings alone
As one sailing on dark waters;
The bitter blast of wind may o’erturn
His little life-raft, leaving him
Ship-wrecked and wretched.

So let us feast together,
Heart-friends, and hearth-companions,
Makers of music and tellers of tales.

As the years since my birth fly by
Like birds before nightfall,
You brighten my spirit
With sparks of heaven-fire.


*	From “The Metres of Boethius,” Metre 6, II. 1-2, translated from Latin to Old English c. 890 AD.

Old English Word-guide:
Dream-craft: music 
Bench-sitter: a fellow companion in the hall
Lone-walker: loner, one exiled 

Mom of ten Anna Eastland is the author of unexpected blossoming a journey of grief and hope, and has contributed to various anthologies including Love Rebel: Reclaiming Motherhood, Canadian Converts II, Never-ending Love: Sharing Stories, Prayers and Comfort for Miscarriage and Infant Loss, Composed, and Habitations Vol.II. She was chosen as a librettist for The Lament’s Project by soprano Ai Horton, who transformed Anna’s babyloss poem “Carry Me” into a song of lament accompanied by harp.

Tai Chi Woman                                                                                 
                                                                                                         
At first, she just                                                                                
      watched    
               the slow, 
      dance-like 
movements 
      of people
practicing tai chi
   in Golden Gate Park,

wave cloud hands,
       strum the lute,
push the mountain,

watching them 
       gave her a peaceful,
contented  feeling,

when she began to 
   practice tai chi,
         she loved  
             how calm
      she felt afterwards,

       her breathing
began to change,

slow    
  deep 
       breaths,

soon she found
     her life
           began 
        to change,

no longer
    fearful,
          unhappy,
                lost,

she became
    cloud waver,
       lute strummer,

mountain pusher.

                                                                                                           

Carol Stanton lives in Pittsburgh PA. She is a member of the Mad Women in the Attic program at Carlow University.  Her poems have been published in Voices from the Attic, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals. She is a retired psychotherapist and taught writing and spiritually oriented courses at the University of San Francisco for many years.

Bhutan—Notes from a Journey

5th day, 4th temple
We slip off shoes     leave them on stone steps
pull aside the fiercely colored cloth curtaining the doorway
step over     not on     the 7th century threshold
onto burnished wood     worn     polished
a patina from thousands of bare feet.
Color bursts from exuberant textiles
incense     strong but not sweet
the smell of butter from the butter lamps.

6th day, 11th temple
Our daughter and the two monks traveling with us
make their prostrations.  Offering of money in hand
we touch it to our foreheads     lay it on an altar filled
with flowers     fruits     food     flanked by two elephant tusks.
The caretaker monk lifts an elegant vessel
the thinnest of spouts     peacock feather adorning its lid
pours a small puddle of sacred water into my cupped hand.
I take a small sip     spread the rest on my head.
One of the monks begins to explain the stacked images
of gods     painted on every inch of wall.

Deities	     myriad reincarnations of deities     a multitude
of manifestations     some benevolent     some angry
multiple gurus     arhats [what are arhats?]
the Bodhisattvas [spelling?]
countless forms of Padmasambhava,
more variations than the arms of Chenresig—
that deity sometimes seen with eleven heads
a thousand arms     an eye in every palm.
Our guide called him Avalokiteshvara.
I finally learned how to say that—and it rolls off the tongue
rather nicely, doesn’t it?  A-va-lo-ki-tesh-va-ra.
And I figured out that Padmasambhava—
the one who brought Buddhism to Bhutan—
is the one they’re calling Guru Rinpoché      “precious teacher”
and I remember that Milarepa is a poet
but I’ve lost track—who is Pema Lingpa?


7th day, 17th temple
Always move clockwise	
always     behind each altar     golden statues
always     three important ones     different in every temple
sometimes Sakyamuni     the Buddha
								Bhutan—Notes from a Journey, p.2
and I know he’s here     I see the coiled hair.
I’ve learned to recognize the next one, too
founder of Bhutan     Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal
the third one?     I’ve no idea.
Surrounding them     a semi-circle of more statues
every detail significant     how each body is positioned
their garments     what they’re sitting on
their mudra     or hand gesture.  Once again
walls packed with paintings     the storytelling begins.

Gods     more gods     demigods     demons
depictions of local protective deities, too—
trying to make sense     I sink in this lake of—

It’s all too much for me     this complex pantheon.

8th day, 18th temple
Punakha     every surface coated in gold.  Today our monks—
by now our friends—are wearing their finest
sweeping red robes     generous drape of orange scarf
and on their chests     bright sparks of the royal yellow
signify their high ranking.

The stories continue     miracles     bigger than life
stories that require putting aside doubt     suspending disbelief.	

8th day, 21st temple
—the weight of it all—
still I bend my head to his quiet voice
try to listen     to follow     pull something out 
something to grasp     perhaps words that form stepping stones
so I can make my way to temple after temple
without drowning     in the detail.

Then     as he speaks     from the heart
of Buddhist thought     three pillars rise
the first one gratitude     to all who help along the way
and then     loving-kindness
to those whose paths intersect with mine
the third     compassion     the eyes to see another’s pain.

As I step outside of yet one more temple
I slip one foot     into the shoe of gratitude.

Melissa Huff feeds her poetry from the power and mystery of the natural world and the ways in which body, nature and spirit intertwine.  An advocate of the power of poetry presented out loud, she twice won awards in the BlackBerry Peach Prizes for Poetry: Spoken and Heard, sponsored by the (U.S.) National Federation of State Poetry Societies.  Recent publishing credits include Gyroscope Review, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Persimmon Tree, Blue Heron Review, andAmethyst Review.  Melissa has been frequently sighted making her way between Illinois and Colorado.