Sun, 05 Jul 2026 14:09:05 +0100WeeblySun, 05 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/patternsTo be human is to find patterns   to
make patterns   Day fades

in its yellows & blues   to deeper hues  
light decreasing to

darkness   only to again burst forth at
daybreak   One muser

marvels at a nautilus shell   while an
old luthier sculpts

violin   viola   cello   & bass
for musicians to

pluck rapid sixteenth notes from   A farmer
combs furrows into

fertile land   a walker leaves her even
footprints on the sand  

& a little child   arranges his tiles
by colour   as a
                            poet does   with words

--
D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College, and Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. He has written six poetry collections, including The Role of the Moon (Paraclete, 2025), Angelicus (2021), and Ampersand (2018). He and his wife live in London, Ontario.]]>Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:43:59 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/eve-outsideEarth is hard outside the gate,
bitter plants will grow--
shrunken fruit
brittle stem
rotten root
thistle and soot,
words as sharp as thorns.
When angels guard the garden door,
there is no going back.

Rain falls hard outside the gate,
poured from an ashen sky.
Never again
a gentle mist
the dappled light
a self-forgetful kiss.
Never our call and His welcome reply.
When holy terror stops our cry,
there is no going back.

I keep this memory in heart:
a good day’s work
the whispering air
toes in the stream
soft bed of fern;
my forehead on his shoulder bare
the edges of a dream
the quiet of our sweet return.

* * *

a short walk, some small talk
and Did God really say?

* * *

Hearts grow hard outside the gate,
cracking jars of clay
of beetles and snakes
maggot and worm
shatter and break;
assign the blame
turn and flee
shiver and shame
belong to me.

Send good news outside the gate,
past the altar stained with blood,
find us on this sun-cracked mud.

Crush this demon gliding after me,
lead me to a better door, a different tree.

--
Brianne Holmes lives in Upstate South Carolina where she works in marketing and communications. In 2016, she earned a Master of Arts in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from East Carolina University. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including the North Carolina Literary Review, Relief, Solum Journal, As Surely As the Sun Literary, Underwood Press and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal.]]>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 14:34:36 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/woodlandsI’ve never felt like this before. The doors
open around me, and I can choose the way
to go. So I will learn where this path leads:
uphill and hidden between the trees, which roar
like traffic – no, like streams – when the north wind blows,
scattering shadows of silence, its winter seeds,
into mossy shade and jagged steps that bend
through stony walls and sunlight. The slope descends,
​
and I look out on fields of fog and snow
where, below, I will wade through pools as high as my knees
or higher. Where will I go? Where am I now?
When winter ends, how will the forest sound?
But I don’t have to know, and that’s just why
I am not lost: Everything here is found.]]>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/morning-prayer8966212Fed up with reflections and illusion
I am begging for something real—
To be alone in the kitchen at half past seven
With flour on my knuckles,
The nitty-gritty nascence of a feast.

I want to bow my head, my heart, my whole body.
I want to be completely hollowed
Into hallowed ground, the divot
That Moses wore away with kneeling—
Ash-stricken by the flames ahead, but holy.

Hold me in some tangible embrace!
Cast out the dark; cut every veil in two.
Enter me incarnate, in bread and wine
And weighty waiting, a patience renewed
By reality, a glimpse of something true.

--
Ava Pardue is a young poet studying at Wheaton College. Her work has been published in Christianity Today and The Christian Century and has been recognized by various groups including the Wells Young Poets Awards and the Wheaton Lowell-Grabill Prize.
]]>Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/a-song-for-my-silenceThese mountains are in my bones—
both calcified spines,
straight lines
from head to heart.
I sit in solitude and listen,
bask in what He’s given.
 
When I grow quiet, I learn
that just beyond the wood-line,
there is bird-swell:
cardinals and wrens,
jays and sparrows,
chattering back and forth
in endless creation-song—
bursting with verve in my repose—
among the ancient spruce and pines.
 
And here, just beyond
the blue mountain’s crest,
a faithful train chugs west
through the valley,
and its longing whistle
adds to the chorus
of nature’s endless hymns.
 
I come here to learn, to go low—
to be voiceless and see anew,
to shed the scales I can’t see through.
I have come here to disappear into it—
to be stripped of my self-obsession,
to find a Truer Country—
when I dare to be still and know:
the mighty ridge,
the thick verdant forest of life,
the lush rhythms of a coming spring.
 
I have come to know God’s hours
and his canvas for myself,
to rest and wait in this quietude
for the sunset, moonlight,
and midnight stars to shine—
unencumbered by the city noise and city lights,
unsheathed from my former self—
so I might watch it all unfold
like the miracle it is:
God stooping—
              even here
                            and ever still—
                                          to paint the sky,              
                                                        all golden-grace
                                          and fire-glow,
                            and to fill the air
              with a song for
my silence.
​
--
Kimberly Phinney is an award-winning professor and writer. She is the founder of TheWayBack2Ourselves.com. Kimberly holds her M.Ed. in English and is a doctoral candidate in Community Care and Counseling. Her work appears in Christianity Today, Ekstasis, Solum, and more. Her poetry collections, Of Wings and Dirt and Exalted Ground, were bestsellers. Her forthcoming book on art and faith debuts with Baker Books in 2027. She’s a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, Audience Choice Award winner with Ekstasis (now Inkwell), and runner-up in Fathom’s Poetry Contest. She was featured on Good Morning America for a national teaching award. Instagram: @kimberlyphinneywriter. Substack: https://thewayback2ourselves.substack.com/.  ]]>Sun, 31 May 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/blessing-at-st-winifreds-wellThe prayers crack like skin.
There never is enough spirit.
 
Imagine the drip of it,
the last of the flow in a thin line
saved in an elderly woman’s
flat, dark hand.
 
Sometimes, the sudden rush
of life. I splash my right hand
into the pool and anoint myself
with the sign of the cross. My wife
holds our son over
the waters -- after men women
children for miles, years around
slip in, jump in, dunk
their heads -- and dips his
frantic feet

naked but
for his nappy, and in the chapel
I pray
that even if he is not healed
the blessing would sing
over his whole life.

--
​after 'Blessing' by Imtiaz Dharker]]>Sun, 24 May 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/kaleidoscopeHe was an extraordinary talker,
but he was not arrogant,
conceited,
or proud.

His words painted the world with
love and kindness,
rather than
charm and vanity.

The beauty was always inside of him.

Without the Light, you could only see
its outline in the shadows.
But with the Light's illumination,
the kaleidoscope within came forth,

speaking life into dead places,
reflecting the Maker's radiance
and His skillful shift of the mirrors in us
to create something new.

--
Madison is a biomedical researcher and emerging poet living in Virginia. Her work explores themes of love and loss and has appeared in Grande Dame Literary.
]]>Sun, 17 May 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/what-do-we-dowith the parts of our soul
that submit, laying down on dark altars?

the parts that giggle and groan
and weep, beneath and behind glass frames?

the parts that beat trowels into daggers and burn
all the seeds, take mallets and chisels into the mines

to wound, steal, be stripped and stained, to bleed
alongside others in shadow? Why do we pretend they are

hidden? Have they finally closed their mouths? Are
they sitting quietly in cold sad corners, unseen and unheard?

                    No.

The feeblest dissemblers among us
cannot keep them chained.

They come screeching, smashing all our
fables, hurling fire on each new name.

Perhaps they slink and sneak
to meet the One who hums--

                    “I will sprinkle you with hyssop.
                    I will wash you.
                    I will make you whiter than snow.”

Perhaps they hope against the dark
their offerings might be redeemed?

Maybe we should bring
them out to meet Him?

--
Blake Kilgore is the author of Leviathan (Hapless Hip Books, 2021), a collection of poems wrestling with faith and doubt. He teaches history and coaches basketball during the workday and tries his best to love his wife and four sons when he goes home. His writing has appeared in many fine journals, recently including Vita Poetica, Fare Forward and Pensive: A Literary Journal of Spirituality and the Arts. You can find out more at blakekilgore.com.
 
]]>Sun, 10 May 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/benediction-at-a-beginningEach year the house was solemnly blessed
with colored chalk on the door jamb and header,
a bloodless script to set this dwelling apart.

In the bleak midwinter a large candle of beeswax
was left lighted on the front window sill as a
beacon for others in the footsteps of the Posada.

In this ordinariness were also folio pages of a
paper Bible taped to the glass, not as elegant
as a Gutenberg in a museum’s showcase that

had its pages in both volumes turned every day,
but bright with devotion as our prayers rose up
and fell like angels on an extended work ladder.

Daily prayers were repeated so quickly, one after
another, that some would think it was arcane gibberish,
but it was instead a shibboleth test of the true heart.

Some of the wealthy and even libraries cut out the
richly illuminated head letters from broken books,
sold as individual pages to increase profits in sales.

Outside in this orderly suburban neighborhood
no one thinks they need to find a place of safety,
and no effort is required to find their daily bread.

But I am the one neighbor who lights a bright candle
that flickers and then moves it toward the window
while I draw back the curtains as a new day begins.

--
Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught classes on the history of Christianity and on global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village that is near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery and Amish farms.]]>Sun, 03 May 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/all-flameThe fire at the end of the day
roars like the distant sea.
The logs are almost ashes now
that once were mighty trees.

But with the wind and heat within,
they glow as if alive,
like Adam in the holy garden
clothed with Breath and light.

There was a bush that burned, I've heard,
but never was consumed.
There was a Man who, after death,
shook off his empty tomb.

He said that if I 'take and eat'
him, I too will never die.
Let me become a bush that burns
with everlasting life.
]]>