Amethyst Review

Circle of Protection

Cage bars of fluorescent lights glared down upon the Pittsburgh Greyhound station’s scattered denizens well after midnight.  Bare walls of dingy tiles framed with blackened grout encased foul odors of cheap booze, diesel fumes, and unbathed bodies under unwashed clothes. Rough characters with menacing glares, weather-beaten ramblers clutching one-way tickets, and runaway teens fleeing to anywhere slouched in sticky, crumb-covered orange plastic chairs, threaded with cracks and splinters, and bolted to a buckling linoleum floor with a patina of accumulated funk. It was the summer of 1988.

I’d arrived there through a combination of young love and stubborn pride: love of a college girlfriend living several states away, and pride over paying my own way to see her, in spite of my dad’s offer to help. I was an adult, I had insisted, and should be responsible for my own travel expenses – a principled stance I’d now come to regret. As airfare was out-of-budget for an undergraduate with an hourly wage, Greyhound appeared my only practical option. Plus, the romantic in me had a nostalgic image of a cross-country bus trip through small towns and rolling farmlands – a slice of classic Americana lifted straight from a Woody Guthrie song. 

The Pittsburgh station’s filth and palpable desperation shattered whatever remained of that illusion, leaving me feeling vulnerable, foolish and scared – until a new arrival appeared. Dressed in black, prim and pressed, she sat perfectly straight in her plastic chair as if in a pew. Sensible shoes, a veil upon her head, and a cross around her neck identified her as a nun. I moved to be closer to her and place myself within what I imagined was a circle of protection.

We didn’t exchange a word. I wasn’t Catholic, and had never spoken with a nun before. I didn’t know what to say, and we sat in silence. But it didn’t matter. Her habit spoke for her, hinting that light can always pierce the gloom, and goodness intrude where it seems conspicuous by its absence. And insisting that there are those not too proud or privileged or petrified to find themselves seated amongst such company. Unlike me. 

Scott Hurd has authored five books, including Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach. His books have been translated into Korean, Polish, and German, and won awards from the Association of Catholic Publishers and the Catholic Press Association. His essays, reviews, and poems have been published in numerous journals, newspapers, and magazines, and he has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is married to fellow writer Diane Kraynak.

Communion

Two women stand still as statues 
in the neighbor’s yard in winter. 
Looking up into the bare branches 
of a tall elm, they watch a large hawk 
perched high overhead and doing 
very little. Another and then 
another passerby is drawn in, 
faces lifted to the sky, strangers 
otherwise, standing shoulder 
to shoulder to shoulder. 

We are no longer in a time of churches.
The world, nevertheless, draws us
together—the cars backed up 
at rush hour, onlookers curious
for the flashing red and blue lights, 
the violence of the torn metal
and shattered glass. There is praying,
so many prayers—as many
as there are harried curses— 
I’d put my money on it.

Here in this cathedral, the one
that has no name but earth,
that has no entrance but here,
we are called to the altar 
of our own being, only to find 
that we are not alone. 
This is the hope of wonder 
and a reason for suffering— 
to arrive where we are 
in God’s sanctuary, 
knowing already 
how to worship, 
knowing already how 
to accept each gift, 
not the least of which
is each other.

Catherine Kennedy studied creative writing and poetry as an undergraduate at Denison University and is a former children’s publishing editor. She splits her residence between Columbus, Ohio, and St. Simons Island, Georgia, and not-so-creatively named her two cats Simon and Georgia. Catherine draws inspiration from place and nature, which reflect her midwestern and southeastern roots as well as her travels, as much as her life will allow. Learn more at http://www.catherinestewartkennedy.com.

Claritas


The rising sun this morning is wild,
striking everything it touches into fire.
  
It’s as if each pellucid piece 
of the wind-bell were scrubbed
 
for hours on end with Windex, 
to give each tinkling of glass 

against glass a savage purity:
each pellucid piece pendulous
 
in the early breeze and clear 
as the interior of diamonds:
 
this morning a tapestry
stitched with strands of glass

dazzling the lead crystal
chalices of our eyes.

Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, has published twenty-three print collections of poetry and several poetry chapbooks, both in print and online. His poems have been published in Amethyst Review, St. Austin Review, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, and elsewhere. Buttonhook Press recently brought out his online chapbook, Letting the Light Work: Poems of Mexico, and two online poetry pamphlets, Gems and Bestiary: Far West Texas.

Needle Biopsy


The room was neutral, hushed 
and dim, except for sconces 
that glowed like modest bouquets 
and a cone of light budding
from the end of a flexible stem. 
It seemed like a lot of people 
for a simple biopsy: a doctor 
to guide the needle, a nurse 
to give and receive, another
who came in just to hold 
my hand. There are all kinds 
of love in this world, here 
to be gathered, carried, 
pressed between pages 
as our grandmothers did, 
knowing they’d forget 
how something unexpected 
arose and shimmered 
on a particular day, 
wanting to remember.

Brett Warren (she/her) is the author of The Map of Unseen Things (Pine Row Press, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Canary, Cape Cod Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Hole in the Head Review, ONE ART, Rise Up Review, SWWIM, Westchester Review, and other literary publications. She is a 2024 Pushcart nominee and was a triple nominee for Best of the Net in 2023. She lives in a house surrounded by pitch pine and black oak trees—nighttime roosts of wild turkeys, who sometimes use the roof of her writing attic as a runway. http://www.brettwarrenpoetry.com

Who sweeps a room…
(George Herbert, The Elixir 1633)

Rub bees wax 
onto the faces and 
wings of angels.
(They would fly from
the reredos were they 
not fixed in time, in space)

Sweep the stone floor.

‘Who sweeps a room’? 
	I do:
‘Who swept?’
	She did.

My mother cleaned 
the village church, 
took me with her.

I liked the smells, 
the dark shapes, 
the eye of the brass eagle,
I liked the pulpit.

I climbed its wooden steps 
stretched up, peeped
at empty pews. 

Outside birds sang, 
trees shushed,
cows lowed.

Inside the metal mop-bucket 
scraped the stone floor,
broom shushed,  
hoover hummed. 

She swept the room as for His laws. 
She made that and the action fine. 
	
Light is mottled, 
scents remain. 

Who sweeps?
	I do
My mother is gone
	I am here

Who will sweep?
I do not know
I shall be gone. 

Susan Brice lives in Derbyshire. She has worked collaboratively with Viv Longley and Jane Keenan to publish two anthologies – Daughters of Thyme (available from dotipress.com) & Homethyme (available from Amazon). They are currently working on a third anthology, Makingthyme. Susan’s collection Brushstrokes of the Ultimate Artist (October 2024) is available from Amazon.

Recently she volunteered to go on the church cleaning rota. Her first session with the mop reminded her of George Herbert’s poem ‘The Elixir’. Cleaning the church gathered the past, present and future into one place.

Strata

Some children play at games decidedly,
some with at least a sense of style, and some
so hesitatingly it’s clear they’ll be
the one who’s chosen last next time. So, from
ten minutes’ observation in the school-
yard, you can peg who’s who, who’s what, who’s fast,
who’s slow, who’s sharp, who’s dull; but they can fool
you, changing places so the first runs last.
Seek out the child who flat refuses play,
who stays inside at recess reading books
or staring out the window. They’ll turn gray
still in a book or giving skies long looks.
So long as there are words or clouds to read,
their steadfastness is almost guaranteed.

Dan Campion is the author of Calypso (1981), The Mirror Test (2024), A Playbill for Sunset (2022), and Peter De Vries and Surrealism (1995) and is a co-editor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (1981, 2nd ed. 1998, 3rd ed. 2019). Dan’s poetry has appeared previously in Amethyst Review and in Able Muse, Light, Poetry, Rolling Stone, THINK, and many other magazines.

The Arrival of Light

They see you enter the room and they walk toward you, and you think, it never fails, and you’d be right. Your energy precedes you. It is free of judgment. It taps on the shoulders of those who need support, opens them up to communicate, to trust. You radiate freedom, liberation. Who wouldn’t be drawn to you?

Always in service, you feel their vibes, their thoughts, the messages carried in their expressions and glances. This is who you are, your way of being in the world, since childhood. You see how it is for them, because you see what they feel. Yours are the eyes of God.

At once, without effort, your essence washes over them like a sunrise. You heal others by having compassion alone, by your intent in the world, by thought and projection.

You are a lightworker — your presence is the arrival of light, dissolving darkness (which is, in truth, only the absence of light). Naturally, people appear to recognize you, to know you, because of who you are, a friend, although they have never met you. This process of reading others and being read, this concurrence, feeds your mission. It encapsulates itself in oneness, the shared energy of your souls, one energy, without separation, unity.

Know this, Lightworker — this one energy is the energy of all things divine: our souls, angels and guides, the cosmos, our creator and creation itself. It channels through you to heal, yes, but also to guide everything associated with your life, to create, to manifest, to foster synchronicity. Call on it, permit it, trust it. It creates through your consciousness, your expectations, your wishes, your thoughts and words. Think and breathe abundance, Lightworker, abundance, it is your birthright.

For you, in this one energy you breathe in and out, service is not a job, an event, a plan, or a chore. It is a lifestyle, a mission. For you, words of fear or distress are a call to service; as are words that restrict, judge or control. You channel high vibrations to “victims” so they may have the consciousness to heal, to retain joy in life; and to “perpetrators” as well, so they may awaken and shift to a heart-centered life. You function with the knowledge that, at our core, we are all pieces of our creator, brothers and sisters in light. You are a lightworker. 

Philip Matcovsky is a lightworker and a cosmic traveler, though New York is his home. He has published or forthcoming in Braided Way Magazine, Aethlon, Pangolin Papers, Odyssey Magazine, DarkWinter Literary Magazine and Brilliant Flash Fiction.

Writing Joy

Is it possible,
when loss
 
scrapes across my page
disturbing letters, scattering words,
 
slicing air? A midnight rain
pounds against windows

of wide white space,
one cruel force of spirit

sent to break mine.
It takes sharp vision

or God’s imagination
to see each drop as its own

sacred animal, inking
wet wild teeth

into paper 
cut from trees.

Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, the forthcoming Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage and the Prose/Creative Nonfiction Editor of Emerge Literary Journal. Her writing appears in Brevity, Witness, Florida Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, among many other lovely places.

    Rovers

Lily Tobias is a poet from Fenton, Michigan. Her poem “Strawberry Interlude” was shown at the 2023 Paseo Arts Association Small Art Show in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and she has work published or forthcoming in Rockvale Review, River Heron Review, The Big Windows Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, and elsewhere. Learn more at lilytobias.com

Ode to an Unknown God

You, who must content yourself with stolen praise,
Your many names pressed into muttered curses. Such a change 
From faceless figures struck in silver and gold,
Bronze altars and eternal fires
Devouring wood removed from profane groves,
Hymns chanted in incense-robed rooms
While blood pools on cool stone floors,
Wounds they thought would win your favour, a dagger
Carving out a space for you to shape into a home.

Now we know better. We’ve pulled down the songs
The statues the stones, wiped the blood
From our knives. It’s so much cleaner
When the desire we must feed is our own. 

Still - you remain, lodged in the cracked
Longings of our mullioned hearts, a driven stake 
Surrounded by trampled grass. So I ask:
Tether us to your grace. 

Matt Escott lives in Toronto with his wife and 6 year old twins. For the past 10 years he has worked with youth experiencing homelessness, and is currently developing a mentorship program for youth in foster care. He has been published in Ekstasis, OneArt, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Heart of Flesh.