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Surely robust gobblers will soon
Preen and swagger in anticipation Of their glorious hour And frantic autumn bucks Will leap into the rut Casting away all caution But the squirrels gather relentlessly Against the cold foodless days When the furnace is broken and When only cardinals and their cousins Paint the sky with color. -- Stephen Grimes is a retired lawyer living in a rural community near Birmingham, Alabama. His poetry has appeared in Ekstasis and Voice & Virtue.
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I hear the somber concerto
Of the crickets who know Their annual Armageddon is nigh: Late summer is passing. The ants and the bees know it And make haste. The last monarchs are translated, The last lightning bugs extinguished. Only recollections now of bream On the bed, Giddy sac-a-lait swirling in schools And bass on the hunt Where I once found the tax I owed In a fish’s mouth. But the crickets with scent of decay Accept their rapid enfeeblement; Collective faith inspires a final fugue, and A harmonious hum is exhaled. Certain that God is trustworthy, They endure the inevitable hour When their eyes become fixed Without desperation, Knowing that it is necessary But not knowing why. -- Stephen Grimes is a retired lawyer living in a rural community near Birmingham, Alabama. His poetry has appeared in Ekstasis and Voice & Virtue. Sitting
resting between quick bicycle motion & quick bicycle motion we sit trailside sipping from water bottles bikes kick-stand still A lady with a walker walks past plodding down a long corridor of tall trees We remount & instantly spin past her while ahead in the middle of the rail trail a heron stands like a stick as motionless as an iron lawn ornament meant to trick the eye into thinking a heron stands motionless in the middle of the rail trail We stop whisper approach hesitantly watch him stretch forth one foot & then the other I cautiously signal the advancing senior to come & see a wonder she has never before seen a heron stretching forth one foot & then the other -- 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. To 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. Earth 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. I’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. Fed 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. These 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/. The 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 He 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. |