Amethyst Review

The Beginner's Guide to Beginning
                                                       for Rupert Loydell

Begin thinking about almost
nothing. Begin asking if there can be a very

nothing. Begin thinking about the word

death spelled from the inside out. Begin
humming a song whose words

you think you’d sing in-

correctly at the beginning
and throughout, hence hum.

Begin thinking

of how you visualized a mouse trap when you
were a child and had only seen one in

a cartoon, perhaps, or

think of what a perhaps trap would be
if you wanted to catch a perhaps, which perhaps

you never have. Begin thinking of how many people

never, in a conversation with you, lapsed
into a rhapsody about anything you felt

rhapsodic about, but don’t begin

complaining. Begin with your earliest memory of
sequins, then hum.
 

John Levy‘s most recent book of poetry is 54 poems: selected & new (Shearsman Books, 2023). He lives on the outskirts of Tucson with his wife, the painter Leslie Buchanan.

Le campane del Lago d’Orta

Across this mountain valley, bell
speaks to bell—tolling, turning, rolling:

first, that old flat bell—dead-march, riven with age—
so cracked the dumb mouth can no longer sing,
clapper a dull clang out of tune
with no echo for the air, none to knell
in limestone fissure or in rippled water.

Then a tenor bell sounds out: 
ringing tongue resonant, robust, 
reverberating from ruby trees far on the other side,
answered then by a third, a fourth, unseen
in shrines, in carillons higher up the mountain flanks.

Around.
A round of bells surrounding:
a roundel—note following note,
swinging in scale and semi-tone, resounding
in patterns of peals all rebounding to my breastbone, 

sound slow-flowing like glaciers
that once crowned the valley—aeons ago—
created waters that chimed, 
that chimed again with bells 
forever calling the simple:

to silence, to awe,
to prayer.

Note: Poetry on the Lake is an annual poetry festival that has been held on the shores of Lake Orta in Northern Italy since 2001. https://www.poetryonthelake.org/

One of the winners in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Lizzie Ballagher focuses on landscapes, both psychological and natural. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2018. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/

Daffodils and Grief

In our snow-globe spring
daffodils cower—face to ground,
trumpets muted, stems brittle—
eager for equinox
and to dance
fancy as music-box ballerinas
in sun’s ballroom.

We too turn from grief—
our poses frozen,
voices pale, nearly broken—
forage for warmth to bathe
blankened faces, then wait,
wait to unfold—limber
again— in the wind of days.

Since beginning to write in 2008, Nancy Jentsch‘s work has appeared in journals such as Still: The Journal and Braided Way. In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the resulting collection, Between the Rows, debuted in 2022. Her current writing project involves reinvestigating genealogical information she unearthed in the pre-computer 1980s. She has retired after 37 years of teaching and finds a bounty of inspiration in her family and her rural home.

Before


Before we stare at screens, 
blanch before mirrors, don 
our dazzling armor, before 
we shield our eyes from those 
who unloose their searching glance, 
before night comes again
to drown us in doubt, morning 
arrives, as it seems it will forever
arrive, slowly, patiently—
it wakes the sparrows and jays,
turns off streetlights,
opens us, like curtains
blowsy with light, into red
skies, asphalt avenues,
the blossoming before the dying
and the blossoming after the dying
in every open patch of earth.

Daniel Thomas’s second poetry book, Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn was published by Cherry Groves Collections in 2022. His first collection, Deep Pockets was published by St. Julian Press in 2018. He has published poems in many journals, including Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Poetry Ireland Review, Belmont Story Review, Amethyst Review, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Atlanta Review, and others. More info at danielthomaspoetry.com.

Hummingbird

Attracted by flowers left in the church
after a wedding, unable to find its way out
though all doors are open, the hummingbird
zips around the large, high-ceilinged space, distracts us
from the service even more than the summer heat.

I worry about it all week, find out next Sunday
that someone thought to move the flowers
to the main doors and it flew to freedom.
If only we could sip the saving grace
of the divine with such ease.

Meg Freer grew up in the 1970s in Missoula, Montana and now lives in Kingston, Ontario where she teaches piano, writes, and enjoys being active outdoors. She writes mostly lyrical poems, which have won awards and have been published across North America. She has published three poetry chapbooks and co-hosts a monthly series featuring poetry performed simultaneously with live improvised music.

Tony Lucas is retired from parish ministry but continues with work of editing and spiritual direction. His poetry has appeared widely on both sides of the Atlantic. Past collections, including Rufus at Ocean Beach (Stride/Carmelyon) and Unsettled Accounts (Stairwell Books) remain available. He is a long-term resident of South London.

Dream 

of a pure — something — 
so clear it barely casts 
a shadow     Scarcely 
wavers when a wind 
picks up     Like spring 
water caught in cupped 
hands — see the lines 
of the palms   slight gaps 
between fingers   opening 
to the shining stream		
beneath     

Katrinka Moore is the author of five poetry books, most recently Diminuendo (Pelekinesis, 2022). Her poems and artwork appear in Terrain.org, Otoliths, Utriculi, Cold Mountain Review, Wild Roof Journal, Woven Tale, and SWWIM, among other journals. She lives in the northern Catskills in New York state and is a longtime Tai Chi practitioner.

In the Fairweather Mountains, Three Ways to Say Farewell
	–Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

-1-
Bundled against the cold dawn, I stand on the ship’s weather deck and consider the bay’s water—at this moment frictionless, opaque, vast. Who could look into this turquoise magnet and not think of jumping? I could grip the deck's chest-high rail and toe the lowest one, the soles of my shoes slipping a bit on the wet shine. I could convince myself it’s a stepladder, you’re only hanging curtains or changing a lightbulb, then climb—one, two, three rungs—swing a leg over the top, in my ears my pulse a thump thump thump of pain and shame and hope. Both legs over now, I would clutch the rail and offer a litany of sorrows. Failures. Apologies to my loves. I flex my knees, consider the physics. I don’t want to simply let go. I must push myself away, arc as far from the ship as my booted, parka-clad body can manage. Point my toes. Think smooth. Oneness. Gratitude. Pray the shock of cold would take my consciousness before the icy teal reached my lungs. They say a person can survive seven minutes in these waters. Once, I wanted to know how they know that. Now I think it wouldn’t take that long. If ever the cancer or chemo or pain; if ever my trembling became too much.  I’d book a cruise to Alaska and never come back.

-2-
The park rangers come to us before breakfast, in a little boat that bumps against our mammoth one, through fog and frigid waters, the wind roughing their lips and cheeks. They climb aboard on a rope ladder. We are snug in our cabins and do not see. But soon we hear them, stationed around the ship, on its public address, telling us about the bay, the mountains, the glaciers. From our balcony I think I recognize: a lumbering boulder of brown bear on the shore, sea lions sunning shoulder to shoulder like tourists on a crowded beach, a distant humpback whale. When the sun comes out, I cry for the beauty—gray mountains and rocks, a sparkling azure sky, white and aqua ice, otters swimming near the ship, one hitchhiking on a chunk of ice. Later, we gather on the bow to eat pea soup, and even the crew comes out to blink at the brilliance—so rare, they say. I think I am learning: glacial silt, phytoplankton, privilege. But when the ship comes close to the glacier and I hear it rumble and calve, mighty pieces of itself crashing to the water, I finally understand: ancient, holy, separation. Earth, the great maternal beast.

-3-
One of the park rangers says her mom is none too fond of the process, so when it’s time for them to disembark the ship, I am there, representing worried mothers everywhere. On the blustery starboard promenade a few of us gather to watch a small boat, slightly more substantial than a piece of driftwood, motor closer and closer, matching the ship’s speed, until it bumps the hull and steadies enough to tether. A controlled crash, the ranger explained earlier. After several attempts, each of which could be a James Bond action scene, the boat is secure—a relative term. Now, far below us, the rangers one by one descend a rope ladder from the ship’s yawning cargo door. For breathless moments they disappear, then reappear and pause on the lowest rung. There each one dangles, a human windchime, watching the boat below thrash and pitch, waiting for the right moment to drop to its drenched deck. I’m gratified to see their footwear seems sturdy and skid resistant, yet I wince when each lets go. But then they are safe, looking up at us, waving, smiling, victorious. After six rangers, identically clad in orange rain suits, are accounted for, unseen hands toss down duffel after duffel—park merchandise, educational materials, the gear one needs in the Alaskan wilderness. Finally the boat breaks away from the ship and cuts across the bay. Our small group lets out a cheer worthy of the World Series, or better yet, a local Little League game. And the rangers wave, and we wave, and it is a triumph of planning and procedures and the prayers of mothers everywhere, to see them safely become a little dot on the horizon. To know that to someone else they are growing larger. They are coming home.

Kory Wells nurtures connection and community through writing, storytelling, and arts initiatives in and beyond the American South. She is author of two poetry collections, most recently Sugar Fix from Terrapin Books. Her writing has been featured on The Slowdown podcast from American Public Media, won Blue Earth Review’s 2023 Flash Creative Nonfiction Contest, and appears in numerous publications. A former poet laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she directs a local reading and open mic series and works with the from-home creative writing program MTSU Write.

Questions for St. Augustine I

Is not the prayer requesting aid,
That part of me imbued in need, 
Empty of your presence which fills heaven and earth,
But leaves my private nook neglected? And if you are 
All present as in this pitcher of milk filled to the brim,
Ready to flow, are you not the thirst
That longs and waits?

Pramod Lad was born in India, educated at King’s College UK , and completed his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry at Cornell University. He was a scientist at the National Institutes of Health. His poems have been accepted in The Examined Life Journal, Right finger pointing, Omentum, Eclectica magazine, The Innisfree poetry journal, The Umbrella Factory, The Pulsebeat Poetry Journal , Pennine Platform, and Litbreak Magazine.

Wearing my apron

as i weed my vegetable garden 
the air has cooled and the sun has faded

my chickens cluck near
waiting for a green morsel—weeds

i watch their heads bob as they walk
and a bubble of a smile pulls me away

from weeds, they stay on roots
of kale, carrots, and earthworms

the chickens’ song, that is somehow
reserved for the wheelbarrow,

like it, rusted, with holes as big as my fists
those are the moments

while wearing a worn blue apron
that i know the only thing that counts, 

if only briefly,
—is joy

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer. Amelia’s poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant. Presently, she resides in Eastern Oregon.