Amethyst Review

The Day Mary Oliver Died
(in some of her own words)

I want to believe the day you died,
you lay down in a field of lilies and
let bliss have its way with you.
One by one they came to comfort you,
the fox, the owl, the hawk, the deer
that you communed with at dawn,
the wild geese guiding you home,
the goldenrod, the lilies, the peonies nodding
you off with their light-filled bodies.
I like to think you died of an overdose of bliss.
Your tombstone would say, here lies a poet,
killed by delight, a bride married to amazement.
You who loved the world so much, I
want to believe you are still alive in another,
in the body of a rose or a tree or a fox.
Is it true that when Mr. Death, that imposter
came for you, you were nowhere to be found
because you were everything everywhere?

Oh, it’s not true that you are not needed.
More than ever we need you to remind us
to trust the dazzling untrimmable light
outshining the dark stories of our lives,
to call us to be astonished by this
one wild and precious life, and in the end
be brave enough to give up the world.

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Marilyn Grant has taught writing at Cerritos College and journal writing to Hospice nurses.  She belongs to a weekly Sangha with like-minded spiritual seekers, which is the inspiration for much of her poetry.  Her poems have appeared in Amethyst Review and Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poetry.

Mi Chamocha

Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai?
Who is like you, Adonai?

As a convert to Judaism, I had the opportunity to choose my own Hebrew name before my beit din. I went through lots of possibilities—Sara, Rachel, Abigail—but in the end, I chose Miryam; Miryam, who led the Israelites out of Egypt singing.

The Israelites left the worst of situations singing. I wish I could have been there to hear the joy in their voices, the celebration, the relief, the fear, the pain, the grief, the hope.

Converts’ souls are said to have been with the Israelites on Mount Sinai, like all Jews in the past, present, and future. My last direct Jewish ancestor, my great-great grandfather, died in 1919, and so my connection to Judaism for the first part of my life was limited. But I found Judaism again. I came back home.

I wonder how my Jewish ancestors celebrated Passover in Europe. Could they, with antisemitism and persecution? Did they have to hide their Jewishness? Were they proud of it? Were they assimilated? I have so many questions and painfully few answers. So today, with no Jewish family members to share a Seder with, in person or over Zoom, I am celebrating Passover in the midst of a pandemic.

I am watching leaves sway in the wind, I am watching inchworms crawl, and I am listening to birds chirping. I am celebrating in the way I know how: I am singing the beautiful prayer Mi Chamocha, the words of praise that my Jewish ancestors sang when they left Egypt, lead by my namesake, Miryam.

The Israelites were singing in grief, but they were also singing with love, joy, and hope. So today, I sing because it still is Passover, even in the midst of a pandemic.

It is still Passover, and I will sing.

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Madison Zehmer is a poet, writer, and wannabe historian from North Carolina, with published and forthcoming work in Déraciné, Drunk Monkeys, Gone Lawn, LandLocked, and elsewhere. She is editor in chief of Mineral Lit Mag, and her first chapbook, “Unhaunting,” will be released by Kelsay Books in 2021.

 

ON SEEING PICASSO’S GUERNICA FOR THE FIRST TIME

Picasso’s Guernica took me aback —
his masterpiece against the dread of war —
starkly painted in blue and white and black
its bleak immensity a metaphor
for senseless killing. It gripped me as I stared,
then fell upon my knees, hands clasped, and sobbed.
Something in me had broken, my soul bared
to agony, my very senses robbed.
Some spectral substance in the paint he used
intruded on my spirit and left me
weeping upon the floor while disabused
of everything my tear-filled eyes might see.
The guard came, touched my shoulder with her hand,
said, “Es bueno llorar,” and helped me stand.

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After earning his Master’s Degree, Mel Goldberg taught literature in California, Illinois, Arizona, and at Stanground College in Cambridgeshire, England.
After an early retirement, he and his artist wife traveled in a motorhome for seven years throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. They currently live on a small income in Mexico.

A Poem in the Margins of Leonard Cohen

All the matter aroused in the vicious delights of Night-
Those that catch the noises, stretch them to a pitch;
A pitch received as something suffering, suffering carried
Over freeways- is set against me. When on these occasions
I’m afraid I hold a pillow, talk with my mind, wait until
Morning, when- again unrestricted, uninhibited, unafraid-
I’ll wake from all the mercilessness.

 

S. T. Brant is a teacher from Las Vegas. Publications s in/coming from Door is a Jar, Santa Clara Review, New South, Rejection Letters, Quail Bell, Mineral, Dodging the Rain, La Piccioletta Barca, Cathexis Northwest Press, a few others. Twitter: @terriblebinth

New Age

But over the sunlight
Shadow
Of the first man.
R. S. Thomas

From gullet to jaw, along the ragged bite
to the tongue of sand tipped white
where I stand, maw-torn, this May morning
whose midwife gulls glide above sea pools
cauled with weed, as a cord of light leads me
– Jonah-born – to the infancy of foam,
over which my golden sire burns,
and my lapis dam spreads forever hands
to gather up their son.

 

Craig Dobson has been published in Acumen, Agenda, Antiphon, Butcher’s Dog, Crannóg, The Frogmore Papers, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, Lighten Up Online, The London Magazine, Magma, Neon, New Welsh Review, The North, Orbis, Pennine Platform, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, The Rialto, Stand, Southword and Under The Radar.

Church

No church could seal her soul. At night her faults
came out to play. Ignorant solace chased
her through frozen stone columns. Sudden vaults
might sprout on hills. Moonlight left her no place
for your mask. Praying to turn into salt,
she’d stop—quite still—then listen for dead chants
that cling, like condensed tears, to ancient walls.
She’d pick words without meanings while cracked saints
smiled down. Then sigh, turn over now, away
from homilies and songs. Soon God could speak
in her upturned ear. The silk voice would play
her untrained soul and she’d know just how weak
words were. She’d perch on sleep’s edge for a chance
to listen longer. Stars gave birth to day.

 

Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Starting from Tu Fu  was just published by Encircle Publications. A new collection is due out in December from Cherry Grove.He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster where he makes his meager living pointing out pretty things. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full length collections so far. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

 

 

“Things Are Not Always What They Seem”
—after Aesop

Things are not always what they seem
Pine smoke and sealed cells and honeybees
Carrying saddlebags of gold that gleam
Things are not always what they seem
Hidden beneath a mask of decay
Lies the substance of a Queen’s delay
Things are not always what they seem
Pine smoke and sealed cells and honeybees

 

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.

My therapist

I remember the time my therapist
made me cry, but not in a bad way. I
had stated for weeks that I found it
difficult to cry. That the ‘buckets’
people talk about had long been
thrown away. And that tears were
extremely frowned upon ‘back in my
day. Tears=failure. A sign of
weakness.

But as I pondered her Converse, and
hugged my armchair, I became
acutely aware that truth was not the
monster it was, and has been. And
like a medieval anchoress, or modern-
day counsellor, I intuitively understood
that empowerment=stillness. A
spiritual commitment.

So that day I cried freely and I
cherished her words. ‘Your tears are
always welcome here.’

 

Claire Sexton is a fifty year old librarian living in Berkshire, but originally from Wales. She lived in London for twenty years and is currently detoxing from this experience. She has been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Foxglove Journal, Amethyst Review, and Light: a Journal of Photography and Poetry.

The Corona

I like to think of the corona around the sun
its aura extending millions of kilometers into space,
not the vicious virus bearing its name emptying
streets, roads, classrooms, offices , museums ,
creating a slab of silence everywhere, driving
people into their homes close to their phones,
their lives suspended while they wish for
summer to host their gatherings again
tossing garland after garland of marigolds,
zinnias, and impatiens as they celebrate
clasping hands, staying close together,
eyes brimming, echoing the aura of sunlight.

In the mean time I watch a pair of mourning doves
on my porch rail peck at each other’s cheeks
or just sit in puffs of comfort doing nothing.

 

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.

 

Architectonics

Across the threshold
into semidarkness alight
with pearly haze,
the outer world stilled
for a moment, so
one enters timelessness.

Moving on across ancient stone
your gaze ascends higher,
and higher still,
until you know your
smallness, human scale.

Silence is here nearly,
only footfalls, fidgets,
solitary, sacred sighs,
sound may be a trumpet blast,
the human voice a noble instrument
again.

In the shadows too
light blazes bright,
the candles in alcoves
arrayed, flaming constellations,
sparkling symmetry.

Too straight for earthly cavern
the path proceeds linearly,
you advance,
all that is past
behind
all else ahead.

The inevitable intersection approaches
line perpendicular to line
as if the earth’s four corners lead
to collision, confrontation;
You approach the center,
stand in the crossroad
all directions visible forever
the convergence of all suffering.

And here at the
center
the chaos in your heart
staggers and stills,
eclipsed by a greater
suffering
than you have ever known,
all reality concentrated—

…………………..Here

……………………………………Now

…………………..Wait

…….Think

…………………..Feel

Planets, stars, spheres,
galaxies, from the beginning,
circling the center,
all are called and recalled
each in its orbit—radiant halo
speaking glory to the ends of space
to the end of time,
a Copernican revolution
it may take you
ages to comprehend.

And you know the center
holds forever, adamantine
record of human error,
Humanity’s Hope
broken and unbroken
eternal.

Lightly, softly—
new,
you withdraw,
re-cross the threshold, flow
back into time
and human frailty,
still echoes of eternity following after

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Jonathan English works as a lawyer in Washington, DC, playing a bit part in our common quest for justice.  He also writes short stories, poetry, and other creative genres, besides writing on law.