Amethyst Review

What will she do today?
for Jennifer A.


Her house has no bones,
no room for a hand dragged over skin
or the kiss crass and sharp.

She feels kind today, helps clear away
residual calculus on night’s edges,
travels sunwise as shoulders read
the world. She fuels jazz on a porch
with a purple bench, leaves a margin
for the elastic recoil of riches
unfurled by eastern cloud-flow.

She inhales primary colors,
exhales secondary hues of violet,
marigold, tangerine, emerald.
Sometimes audible, sometimes private
—breath—
always the main character.

Meg Freer grew up in Montana and lives in Kingston, Ontario. She has worked as an editor and currently teaches piano. She enjoys taking photos and being active outdoors year-round. Her writing has been published in anthologies and various journals such as Vallum, Arc Poetry, and Sunlight Press.

Turbulent Times
 
God takes up lots of space on the plane,
insists on having the window seat.
I slide over to make room.
 
Moments before unrestrained objects
begin to shift, the pilot announces
we are heading into turbulence.
 
I reach over to hold God’s hand
but God is busy, conducting
a symphony of birds drunk on sky.
 
If my faith were pushier,
I’d brush my fingertips
against the hem of God’s cloak.
 
Instead, I sulk and get dizzy
watching God out of the corner
of my eye devouring pretzels.
 
Will I give up this easily? Why not
interrupt and say something? Then
the plane pitches and yaws,
 
an orange rolls down the aisle.
Still busy with birds, God looks
unperturbed and yawns.
 
I see a tree inside God’s mouth
and hanging from a branch, a swing.
It would be brazen to say it was waiting
for me, but it was.

Jennifer Clark is the author of a children’s book and three full-length poetry collections, most recently A Beginner’s Guide to Heaven (Unsolicited Press). She has a hybrid collection, Kissing the World Goodbye, forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2022. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her website is jenniferclarkkzoo.com.

Parallel Lives


As if yearning to reach further, you lean forward 
of fluttering new leaves that soon choke out 
the summer sky, or chiming a copper tune
in autumn, or in mid-winter wearing
a thin shawl of light as quiet patches of clouds
pass by, your branches sparse in the cold air,
you wait for the wind to signal which way
to bend or sway. I learn from your dance.

Janet Krauss, who has two books of poetry published, “Borrowed Scenery,” Yuganta Press, and “Through the Trees of Autumn,” Spartina Press, has recently retired from teaching English at Fairfield University. Her mission is to help and guide Bridgeport’s  young children through her teaching creative writing, leading book clubs and reading to and engaging a kindergarten class. As a poet, she co-directs the poetry program of the Black Rock Art Guild.

The Last Daylily


The last daylily of the season
bloomed alone, a reminder
of both the beauty and fragility 
of every living thing. 
Its orpiment petals shone
through the curtains,
as if locked in an elegant dance
with the golden glow of the floor lamp,
which—bending toward the window—
paid homage to the sun.
Hemerocallis, “day beauty,”
survives drought, frost and disease,
yet each flower lasts only one day.
When the sun fades, 
it folds itself into submission 
to the rhizome’s destiny,
having completed its small role
in a life so much greater than 
the consciousness of blossoms.

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbook, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books) and two forthcoming chapbooks. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

DOGWOOD  
 
New leaves pearl 
toward yellow lamplight. 
 
They grew when my  
eye was away.  
                     *** 
My tears mist rose-colored  
dusk that catches   
leaf-edge and  
burns.  
 
The leaf is a red that  
stains and never leaves— 
a light upon a closed eye. 
What could pierce me more.  
 
Transfixed  
alone, fingers bleeding  
from the parchment-edge 
where she struck her revelations, 
she sees his face in a  
nimbus of fire and  
cannot touch it— 
 
only look, as the  
light remains,  
for the moment. 
A leaf pressed between pages.  
                      *** 
I settle into the old path and  
remember its grooves, 
where the dogwood faded  
to pink in summer. 
 
Now, it doesn’t bloom, but 
waits at the street’s end, 
suspended in amber  
just before the fall. 
 
In rusting light,  
I see it differently  
each time I follow the bend. 
My steps follow what they know.  

Hannah Hinsch is a Seattle-based writer who graduated summa cum laude from Seattle Pacific University with a degree in English Literature and fiction. She was the editorial intern at Image journal, a leading quarterly that joins art and faith, for two years. Hannah writes across genres, and finds her impetus among Greek mythology, the Old and New Testament, and in the green, salt-soaked Pacific Northwest. Hannah not only sees writing as an exercise in aesthetics and attentiveness, she leans into writing as a way of knowing, a hermeneutic of God.  

Waterdrops

Leaves shimmer like
green candle flames
on wooden branches

Waterdrops,
the size of two rupee coins
thrum against glass panes –
the notes of a lullaby.

Dusk rolls a velvet
carpet for
the moon to coat stars

with milk at the mountain
tip, listen
to the melody of water.

Sleep,
a dragonfly
alights, knowing it is warm
in the folds
of silence.

The grey sky
lowers her feet
on the uneven marble floor
bracing
to land in a puddle.

The moon has turned
out dry. Her white face
untouched by waterdrops.

Preeth Ganapathy lives in Bengaluru, India. Her work has appeared or
is forthcoming in a number of avenues such as Origami Poems Project,
The Buddhist Poetry Review,  Better Than Starbucks and Young Ravens
Literary Review.  She is also the winner of Wilda Morris’s July 2020
Poetry Challenge.

Onuma


What then is your name? 
The name that claims you as a dweller of the earth.
It may not be that name you were given, the name
that certified your birth. 

What now is your name?
The name you name yourself to rectify your worth,
you know– your bark and sap name, your wing 
and fin name, your lichened rock and hidden river name. 

The name your feet print 
step by step as you walk on dirt, 
as you walk over bones of the dead–what then
is the name the trees will know you by
when you return? 

Maeve (aka Jeri) Reilly is a writer from Minnesota who spends part of each year in Co Sligo, Ireland, where she once lived. Her most recent words can be found in Dark Mountain, Utne Reader, and The Lonely Crowd (forthcoming). She is currently learning Irish in solidarity with her ancestors and with the land. Tweets @MaeveWriter

Shadow & Bough
 
Behold— the space
between shadow & bough
where two red pears sway in
 
ripeness— hidden in thick
green leaves swelling inches
above my head— like all
 
temptation is a two-handed
plot of rustling the goods with-
out disturbing the balance of
 
bodies— I know how to pivot,
reaching deep into that space
without suffering a slip that
 
would give me away in this
pinch of fruit that drops
into my ready hands.
 

M.J. Iuppa’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Cup


Someone whose cup is full has no need. 
Nothing new can be poured into them.
Someone whose cup is dry is thirsty, 
grateful and accepting of whatever rain comes.

Let this be no delicate shower. 
Let it be the storm that pummeled Noah—
a flood to drown a world				
of preconceptions.

Let it hoist the spirit on wild swells of trust,
creaking arc, wondrously alive—
scratching, slithering, whinnying,
with a host of marvelous beasts. 

What one can do in this universe is small.
What might be achieved
with open heart and diligent hands			
is enormous and sacred.

If God can be found, let Him be found in art.
Let Him be found in service, a readiness to act,
and in the sensual pleasures of sun on vine after rain.
Bird returning with the tiniest of twigs.

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer living in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems have appeared in Plainsongs, The Main Street Rag, Third Wednesday, Kind Writers, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere.

Mizu (Water)

I wrote the kanji of your name
In water on a paving stone in the garden

Each brushstroke a prayer to heal you
The sun stole the first letter before I finished

It was impossible to compose your name in full
Even when I raced through it

Life: one second within the stretches of time
A droplet that splashes, stains and fades

Ending almost as soon as it begins

Tamiko Mackison studied Latin and French at New College, Oxford. She is raising two young children. When there’s no pandemic, she’s hired as a wedding pianist from time to time.