Amethyst Review

Imperative to Feel in Place on Earth


See the moon, rotation-borne, 
rise from the earth that’s lined with seams 
of smoky quartz, smoldering under
the husky orange of oak-leaf windfall.

Watch the golden harvest moon,
an acorn once, lift and exchange 
its heavy earthly state for something 
smaller, light, essential, white.

Hear leaves rustle, drop, and rattle—
on earth, all falls, and falls to earth—
while the soundless moon sails up
above the weary blue-black hills.

Bear witness to the seasoned earth, 
and like all mortal things, embrace
a moment in your fear-curled body 
thoughts of decay and moonlessness.
 
Succumb and die and lie still, finally.
But at the last become a seed 
pressed into coming April mud, 
then break through earth and as the moon,

rise in situ from the turning
earth, the earth you thought would claim 
your stony heart. Take root. Lift moonward.
Be unafraid to fall again.

Brian Palmer is a retired English teacher and now pursues full-time his interests in studying and writing poetry, inspired by the natural environments of the West and Pacific NW. His recent poetry collection, Prairiehead, was released in the fall of 2023 with Kelsay Books. He is the editor and publisher of THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays. He currently lives in Juneau, Alaska.

Brother Lavender

Remember that when you leave this earth,
 you can take nothing that you have received...
but only what you have given.
 – Francis of Assisi

I’m steeping in it now, growing bushes in pots, 
brushing my teeth with lavender flavor,
tucking sachets in every drawer
nestling it under underwear.
It’s with me, that lavender hillside 
in Italy, humped rows parted
by a tractor’s billowing dust.

My laundry is redolent of Italy, 
like candied flowers around a dessert.
I met Brother Lavender in a man sitting
on a sunlit ledge beside the church.
He was selling bags of flowers to tourists,
dressed like a hippie from the middle ages. 
He was belled with bracelets 
that jingled scant melodies
as he gestured to come and buy, holding up
a nose-gay. I came and leaned forward to smell
a burst of scent sudden and soft 
as the pretty eyes of a giraffe.

He was a day out of time. 
He offered me five for some uncountable
amount in Italian, then just gave me
the whole basket. I brought it home 
on the plane, fragrance inhabiting my suitcase 
and still carries me to a mountainside 
and the portable longing for home
we all keep close, best answered 
by spontaneous gifts 
and answering anyone’s need.

Rachel Dacus is the author of seven novels and four poetry collections. Her poetry, stories, and essays have appeared in Boulevard, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, Eclectica and Image: Art, Faith, and Mystery. Her work is in Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California and Radiant DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. She enjoys living in the San Francisco Bay Area, with its nature trails where she can walk to refresh her spirit and dictate ideas into her phone.

cockatoo

could i see my reflection
in its eyes
while in a cage
wearing a mini
homemade green sweater
over a self-plucked chest
as it watches
out the window
wasps and pearl crescents
competing
for all the garden asters
as elm trees absorb
the autumn sunset
into their golden leaves

Anthony Lusardi lives in Rockaway Borough, New Jersey, where he writes haiku and other poetry. He has been published in journals, such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, hedgerow, dadakuku, NOON and Verse Virtual. He has four chapbooks, published by buddha baby press. To purchase copies, contact him through email at lusardi133@gmail.com.

And A Child Shall Lead Them


I.  In Denmark we are Lutheran,
says the tour guide, repeating himself in German

for travelers who do not speak English.
This church, Grundtvigs Kirke, is very important.

Look at the bricks, ten million bricks used
and every one the best, the finest in all Scandinavia.

The church holds 1,000 people,  
here he pauses conspiratorially,

but on any given Sunday, you will only find 27.
We laugh. Do what’s expected.

II.  Still there are Catholics in Denmark, 
and the next morning I go to Jesu Hjerte Kirke, 

Sacred Heart Church, where heads, not too many,
not too few, bend; elbows lean on old wooden pews.

And while the priest preaches in a language 
I don’t understand: Was that Christos? Did he say Sin? 

I keep wondering when Mass will end 
so I can leave church, walk the downtown streets

again, search again for that perfect konditori, a bakery 
with a trip-defining Danish pastry,

III.  and then a baby screams, no reason, inconsolable, 
prolonged, no remedy, a mother’s comfort worth 

nothing, it seems, against the universal measure 
of human heartache. And then I remember 

why we use the finest bricks, 
why we gather on old wooden pews, 

how we come to hold the highest hopes 
in the raised host, the Risen Lord, 

and I pray that this child, so desolate today,
will someday count himself—among the 27.

Maryanne Hannan has published poetry in both All Shall Be Well: A poetry anthology for Julian of Norwich and Thin Places & Sacred Spaces. A resident of upstate New York, USA, she is the author of Rocking Like it’s all Intermezzo: 21st Century Responsorials.

Seagull Church

We’re on our way home when my attention is drawn to a church parking lot where an enormous group of seagulls gathers like a sheet of snow in the dead of August, stark white like clean, pressed shirts, speckled gray and black like neckties. Seagulls in Sunday best. Pastor Seagull behind a podium in front of its hungry flock. Seagulls kneeling at pews with their toe-walking, tree-twig legs. Seagulls whose souls release both joyful and anguished prayers from the tips of beaks. 

Prayers that flitter into the sticky, sweat-sweet air and are carried on sacred wind to God.  
 

April Lynn DeOliveira is a Michigan-based writer, educator, and editor-in-chief of Cereal City Review. She has been published in Fiction on the Web, Walloon Writers Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Eunoia Review, Front Porch Republic, Great Lakes Review, Defenestrationism.net, and others. When she is not feverishly pecking away on her tablet, she can be found reading, gardening, traversing Michigan and beyond with her wonderful husband, and wishing she weren’t allergic to cats.

Forever green

Perhaps they'll never 
spin the wheel of color art
and deviate in hues from
greens to blues to mauves,
magentas and all the in
betweens, or go the rogue
when Autumn reigns with
limbo leaves, disarmed
in droves and falling.

They'll never win triathlons
nor run with bulls, ride the rails
speak in tongues, jump the broom
or walk the red lined carpet.

But they'll stand for you 
forever green, and rarely drop
their leaves, while pastels
pale the branch and morph
amid mere memory.

When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting with macrame. She volunteers in animal rescue tending to cat colonies in the neighborhood. She walks with a birding group on weekends. Living by a beach town, is inspiration for her art and poetry. Some of her poems have appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Amethyst Review, The Rye Whiskey Review. Her latest collection is Ten random wrens, published by Maverick Duck Press.

October Prayer

nae dear god, nae amen
jist a laggie skein beatin 
a braid path i the clood-spreckelt lift;
birk leaves i the rakin wind
like a shook tambourine

Chris Powici lives in Perthshire. For many years he taught creative writing for the University of Stirling and the Open University, but now concentrates on writing poems and essays, mainly about how the human and natural worlds overlap. His latest poetry collection is Look, Breathe (Red Squirrel Press). Chris is co-editor of New Writing Scotland and one of the writers behind the climate change campaign group and e-zine ‘Paperboats’: https://paperboats.org/writings

Anchorite

To be dead is to be safe. I am excused the touch
of hands.  I am contained.  I cannot be removed 
from here.				                  I am free 
to concentrate on pain. I am companion to God.
Sounds enter through this window. I am a mind 
quiet within these walls. I am contained by God
and contain God. I do not find myself sufficient. 
I am safe from the touch of hands. Water enters 
through this window. I am a companion to pain.
I will be buried in this floor. Cold enters through 
this window. I am excused the trouble of voices. 
I am insufficient to God. I am dead and thus am
safe from death. I am companion to this silence. 
I am contained by solitude. My hands will touch
in prayer. I am companion to visions. Day enters 
through this window. I am excused the limitless
horizon without. There is enough of God in here.

Clare Starling started writing poetry when her son was diagnosed with autism during lockdown. Her poems have since been published in many journals including Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Poetrygram, Porridge, Obsessed With Pipework, and The Interpreter’s House. Her pamphlet Magpie’s Nest won the Frosted Fire First Pamphlet Award 2023. She particularly loves writing about our connection with nature, and about how neurodiversity can give different perspectives on the world.

The Hat

A neighbourhood fixture, no one actually knew the mysterious Reb Moishe – one of those who escaped Russia with a battered valise and a horde of enigmas. A roomer behind a discount men’s wear shop, he never spoke of family and lived alone. Lacking discipline and precision, with only the barest employment, Reb Moishe was the indifferent tailor of a reluctant clientele. Hat and coat from the “old country,” a daguerreotype of a refugee wearing out the sidewalks of this beach town or ruminating in some deserted park long abandoned to the weeds – that’s what people saw. 

To live by a stream would be consolation enough for the locust years, he’d mumble if anyone cared to hear. The sand and the salt air were a constant irritation yet he would not leave. 

When Reb Moishe died it seemed he was fated to go unmourned – or worse – unburied, a test imposed by the Divine Court on Shmilke Fine, chairman (and only member) of the Burial Society. Even a spot next to the fence where suicides were hidden cost more than the contents of the charity box.

A respectable funeral for Reb Moishe defied Shmilke Fine’s resources. The notice placed in the Jewish newspapers produced no heir. (Who wants to inherit a debt?)  And then… while others were concentrated in prayer two back row regulars engaging in idle chatter brought the salvation merciful as the dawn.

– Well, he did wear a hat. Maybe he was pious?

– Maybe he was a “lamed-vavnik”? came the facetious reply. 

What Shmilke Fine overheard broke the spell of his helplessness. An epiphany! One of the concealed 36 righteous pillars that hold up the world! He rose as if from the dead and with whispers let on that Reb Moishe was a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, may his name be blessed. As the rumour spread donors sprang forth – such an illustrious genealogy, a holy man – Reb Moishe’s burial could not be delayed. And so it was that with donations sufficient for a prestigious plot, a nephew of the Baal Shem Tov’s grandfather’s grandmother on his stepmother’s side was laid to rest in the section of the cemetery reserved for the elite.

Covered in brambles and vines a century hence, obscured by lichens, how will the inscription on the headstone explain the past? Surrounded by the once-revered rabbis – how did Reb Moishe merit such company? Only Shmilke Fine was privy to the secret and with Shmilke Fine the secret passed away.

Marty Newman was born in Czechoslovakia, raised in Montreal, Canada, educated at McGill University & lives in Jerusalem where he studies ancient languages & texts. The modern poets who influence him most are Dan Pagis, Richard Wilbur, Zbigniew Herbert & Vasko Popa.