Amethyst Review

The Nature of Things
 
Our lives, spirals,
grooves in soft earth
like those behind a plow
in freshly-turned field, 
 
each path unique but similar,
a labyrinth we all follow.
Our mothers, the starting point.
Our loves and losses become
details etched in stones 
lining our walk,
leading to the stopping point 
where a final breath holds itself
at journey’s end.
 
Perhaps we are like water
hurtling toward, then over the falls.
That we are allowed even once
to crash into pools,
curl ourselves around rocks,
and overflow banks 
is enough.
 
 

Peggy Hammond’s poetry is featured or forthcoming in The Lyricist, Oberon Poetry, High Shelf Press, San Antonio Review, Inklette, West Trade Review, Rogue Agent, Ginosko Literary Journal, and Trouvaille Review.  Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, North Carolina.

AFTER SHE GETS HER BRACES OFF
 
my daughter sits with her seatbelt on,
pigtail up, pulling her lips up
to the rear-view mirror's small island
that glimmers in the November sun.
 
She opens and closes her mouth,
snapping her teeth together each time.
She looks left, right, at each side
of her beautiful, freckled face,
 
She goes back over the years,
fifth grade, the palette expander,
medieval torture device, and then
the brackets and brands as she grew.
 
Years of metal have gone 
and now, an ivory flash.
Oh, the teeth are slimy, she reports,
wagging her thick, pink tongue across them. 
 
Those years I sat in the waiting room
with its pictures of speckled trout,
Maine cliffs, a scout in olive knee socks
leaning on a stick over a mountain.
 
Of course, I was afraid of straightening her out,
did not mind at all that her bite bent,
would change nothing about her,
but it is not that way, of course.
 
There are reasons we cannot stay
exactly as we are, and she grins so widely
perhaps she thinks
today is the end of that.
 
 

Elizabeth Crowell was born and raised in New Jersey.  She has a B.A. in English from Smith College and an M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University.  She has taught high school and college English.  She lives outside Boston with her wife and two children.  

Her work has been included in The Bellevue Literary Review, where it has twice won the non-fiction prize, Tishman Review, Raven’s Edge and most recently Levee.  

IV.             Teresa’s Vision
 from 'Saints' Tales: Dialogues in Solitude'

There was really nothing:
A nothing described,
In so many words,
As a smooth space, 
Featureless, bland,
So you would know;
A smooth space – 
In a manner of speaking –
The present and evasive wall
Approached by a hand.
 
Because there was nothing to see,
I returned to the primitive sense:
Lifted, extended,
A greeting –
The magical figure
Turned at that very moment,
Without alteration,
To a gesture of grief:
Symmetrical always; 
Speechless.
 
But you, ardent and willful Teresa,
Shouted “Look at me!”
You, O passionate Teresa,
Saw.

Cynthia Sowers was a Senior Lecturer at the Residential College of the University of Michigan until retirement in 2019. Five of her poems were published in the inaugural issue of the Solum Journal (Fall 2020). https://cynthiasowers.rc.lsa.umich.edu/

from the shell of things

                      *

He searches for a word—the color
of the rice fields here in October,
Chuseok day.  Golden seems most accessible,
 
easily connected to the wheat fields
he’s seen in Kansas, but not the color
of the gold-finch in March, newly arrived
 
from winter.  Not the sandy blond hair
of his son waving in front of him
on this narrow road between the fields.
 
Crayola might suggest orange, yellow,
maize, or dandelion, maybe golden-
rod or sunglow when the day is bright
 
like this one, but the rice field resists
the only language he can offer. 
Yellow perhaps is the color a child
 
or a foreigner might choose.  He throws
his hands out in front of him over these fields
and pleads for a color, a chosen word
 
for a finished season, for the only
harvest of the year on this tiered hillside
near the sea under the blue sky—the same
 
blue that answers prayers, responds to chants
and petitions, that lunges, that rests,
that hugs every living thing at its end.
 

Jacob Stratman’s first book of poems, What I Have I Offer With Two Hands, is a part of the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade, 2019). His most recent poems are forthcoming in The Christian Century, Spoon River Poetry Review, Salt Hill, Bearings Online, and Ekstasis.  He lives and teaches in Siloam Springs, AR.

LUCKY

My thoughts linger 
on the hem of my purple dress. 
 
I am not a perpetual witness to failure 
but a doppelganger uncovering roots –
 
source of connection and remembrance.
Sometimes I traverse the road between heaven and hell, 
 
strumming “So Long Marianne” on a beat-up guitar 
or fingering prayer beads. 
 
I don’t recognize family portraits in the hall, 
blue light turning faces olive and sullen. 
 
I listen to myself whistling. 
It’s not a matter of chance, 
 
not a question of who, what, where, why 
or when, but the other w — wonder—
 
whipping around the windowsill 
as Earth spins into dawn. 
 
I bathe in morning light 
with a full view of the chapel. 
 
I am not my own worst enemy.
I am a lucky lady holding out a finger for a bird. 

Susan Michele Coronel is a NYC-based poet and educator. She has a B.A. in English from Indiana University-Bloomington and an M.S. Ed. in Applied Linguistics from the City University of New York. Her poems have appeared in publications including Prometheus Dreaming, Hoxie Gorge Review, Ekphrastic Review, Passengers Journal, Street Cake, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Newtown Literary, and HerWords.

The Interstellar Kingdom
 
Sometimes I see the sky smiling at me
The limpidity spirit and flower clouds
such as the old soul of mine
watch my shadow on the earth
 
The ground beneath my feet like a colossal ship
toward the Interstellar Kingdom
Those cities where giants dwell
blossom on the dustless Milky Way.
 
星际的王国
 
有时我看到天空向我微笑
那淸澈的空明 花朵的云儿
仿佛我那古老的灵魂
注视着我在人间的身影
 
这脚下的大地是一艘巨轮
正在驶向星际的王国
那些巨人们居住的城市
在没有尘埃的银河上绽放
 
2016.1.2

Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet’s Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best known works are Platinum City and Golden Giant. His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization.

Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email- 3112362909@qq.com.

Tom In The Upper Room
 
Need me at all? If not…
I turn and look at him. Like that. 
He just blows a kiss 
through the palm of his hand.
 
The garden throbs with shadows,
scatters spring along the gaps
of branches, nibs of grass
all scribbling nothing.
 
I remember lockdown.
Nowhere to go, not much to do.
Fitting my hand to his side
like the piece of a puzzle.
 
Fingers wriggling into
the warmth of his flesh.
Unexpectedly soft 
as a newly healed wound.
 

Carolyn Oulton has been published in magazines including Acumen, Artemis, Envoi, The Frogmore Papers, from the edge, Ink Sweat & Tears, Nine Muses, Orbis, The Poetry Village, The Moth and Seventh Quarry. Her most recent collection Accidental Fruit is published by Worple Press. Her website is at carolynoulton.co.uk

HAIBUN: WILD PLUMS

One day you look through the window, see sticks – slender trunks, slivers of branches along the fencerow. Too early for leaves, the colony of wild plums stands bare. The next day, like a butterfly – first a thumb of dull pupa, then a kaleidoscope of colour – the trees have burst into spectacle. Tiny white flowers, startlingly pure and fresh, erupt against the dull pasture of early spring. The blossoms – short-lived food for early bees – scent the season, renewing the promise of summer-green leaves and fall fruit. I steal from the bees: bring an armload of blossoms into the sitting room where the warmth of the woodstove this evening will release their perfume. Later, after the planting and weeding and harvesting of crops, another miracle happens. Suddenly, purple plums hang from slender branches above the fence. You set baskets on the kitchen counter where we wash the fruit, cut each small plum in half, pit, and stew into syrup, pour wild-plum jelly into tiny jars. 

Two wonders wake heart
White blossoms burst into spring
Fall’s tart plum jelly

Kathryn MacDonald’s poetry has been published in literary journals in Canada, the U.S., England, and Ireland. Her poem “Seduction” was short-listed for the 2019 Freefall Poetry Contest. She is the author of A Breeze You Whisper (poems, 2011) and Calla & Édourd (fiction, 2009). Website: https://KathrynMacDonald.com. 

Silver
 
My flushed, older twin reveals himself, like
a conjurer, from behind a veil of
nothingness. Greyer – silvery   – my future
self. I stare toward him and utter, half
 
composed, half shaking. I ask silver me
how we feel these few decades on. He beams
a sunlight smile. We are happy. Content.
We have smiled a million smiles. This surreal
 
avenue to future memories, tells
of creaking bridges – sighing – groaning. Yet
Silver heartens me as he speaks of pride
and joy to come. He sings approval. I
 
reply with glistening relief. He reveals
towering trophy moments. Silver, smiles with
empathy. He stamps lucid authority,
yet I feel loose and safe I quiz him further.
 
He oozes words of health and wealth to soon
embrace me, like a prodigal son. He
tells of deeds and compassion toward city
nomads – homeless. Not soulless. Silver neither
 
daunts or haunts me. Two old friends stealing a chance
to chat. Encouraging – not disparaging. 
He plays images of a wife and child –
beyond my comprehension. I shoot a
 
smile in reply. He booms of books, penned between
us. This is a conversation of 
contentment – of accomplishment. As
Silver fades. I am ecstatic – full of hope.

Paul Attwell lives in Richmond, London, with his partner Alis, and Pudsey the cat. Paul’s experiences of depression and ADHD help shape his work. The pamphlet, Blade is available from Wrong Rooster Publishing at https://www.wrongroosterpublishing.com/ 

Sacred Familiarities

Where I live, in Arizona, what is held as sacred is invariably a part of nature and the land. Native people here need to constantly be vigilant to protect sites of special significance to them from mining or other destructive projects imposed by the now dominant commercial culture. Travel around the state has brought me to share the native view of sacredness, as the mountains and desert gradually became internalized and I came to see why Baboquivari Peak or Quitobaquito Springs have taken on such significance. Of course, these sites can only become a kind of borrowed reference in my spiritual life, vital as they are, and I turn to what is closer at hand to explore the deeper, personal meaning of being sacred.

Looking out from my windows, front and back, I have a view of hummingbirds and other species at home in city and desert: thrashers, mockingbirds, towhees, a couple of hawk species, goldfinches, woodpeckers and more, whose presence is an accompaniment to my life and routine that has far outgrown the simply aesthetic. There are coyotes too, sauntering down the urban asphalt now and then, bringing a little of the wild with them. And from the back of the house I see South Mountain, a desert mountain that is one of the largest city parks in the world at ca. 17,000 acres, which invites the imagination into a world inhabited by yet more animals. All this may not be spectacular on a scale of global sights, but familiarity has elevated my surroundings to a status I hadn’t expected.

We rely on much that comes from contemporary commerce, and no matter how the conveniences ease our way from day to day, the experience hardly nurtures the spirit. The natural world is the real world, and it is to that I look for deeper significance in everyday life. An occasional visit from an oriole in migration season has immeasurable value, and sharing such moments with my wife made them all the more valuable. The sacred is a force to be shared, whether domestically or within the community.

Invariably, on trips taken around the state, I wrote as we went about what we saw and the poems are in part an effort to heighten the experience and in part a means of telling others how it felt to be in, for example, Madera Canyon or the Chiricahua Mountains. Meanwhile, back at home the same principle applies, as the shifting light or a surprise appearance asks to be recorded because the experience demands it.

Writing itself becomes a close relative of the sacred as the process binds exterior and interior worlds.

David Chorlton lives in Phoenix, close to a large desert mountain city park from which various creatures visit after sundown! He has published several books and performed poetry on occasion with his recently deceased wife, a violinist who brought out extra dimensions in the work with her music.