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By Scott Braswell and Michael Braswell Mildred Percy stood at her kitchen window – the one decorated with ceramic thimbles donated by her third-grade Sunday school class – and watched the parking lot lights across the street snuff out one by one. It was getting late. She walked to the kitchen screen door, one hand caked in Bisquick and the other holding a bottle of sorghum molasses she had removed from the antique cupboard. Her husband, Elmer, liked biscuits for supper on Sunday evenings. He would often joke to his six p.m. Sunday night congregation that the evening's sermon may be cut short because it was biscuit night. Tonight, though, it was getting late; the clock was creeping past eight-thirty. “Elmer! It’s close to suppertime,” Mildred shouted in a voice so loud it surprised her. Five minutes ticked by and still no sign of her husband. She looked out at the old oak tree in the back yard, its branches lifted by a late summer breeze, as if it were shrugging its shoulders, saying, “I don’t know where he is either.” Mildred smiled at that thought for a quick moment and returned her attention to her missing husband. She knew he’d grunt and groan if the biscuits and sorghum weren’t on the table by the time her grandmother’s clock struck five o’clock. She didn’t mind it so much – the biscuits, that is, not the clock. She had always hated the sound that clock made. Slamming the screen door behind her, Mildred hurried to the garden where she found Elmer, crumpled on the ground, his legs spread and his back against the old oak. He was holding the gold office pen he always had clipped to his shirt pocket, the one she got him for Christmas, with his name engraved on it. His thumb was nervously clicking the pen. “Mr. Percy, what in the world is going on with you. Those biscuits are gonna crawl back in the can if you don’t come eat ‘em!” Mildred arched her eyebrow in disapproval and placed her Bisquick-caked hand on her hip, just like her mother used to do. She hated when her mother did that. “Something happened to me Milly,” Elmer said in a soft voice, wiping at eyes wet and raw with tears. Mildred’s wrinkled brow softened, and she could feel her heartbeat begin to race. A warm breeze lifted the hair off her neck and carried with it the unmistakable scent of burning biscuits. She mourned them for a split second. “Well Lord have mercy, do I need to call Dr. Elsey, or 911?” she asked her husband. Elmer shook his head and ran his hand through the tall grass beside him. He bit his lower lip – a lifelong nervous habit of his – the words in his throat falling apart before making their way to his mouth. He breathed deeply and watched clouds move across the sky. He thought for a moment about how he had never noticed the sky before. Mildred hesitantly took his hand. He could feel her worry moving over him. “What’s going on with you, Elmer Percy?” she asked with soft urgency. “You want to come inside and talk about it? Those biscuits are…” Elmer gave her hand a slight squeeze and looked up at her. “I think I had a dream.” “A dream? What kind of a dream?” Elmer sighed and ran his hand through the grass again. He shook his head slowly, watching the sun drop a couple of rungs down the sky. “Don’t know,” he answered. “I took a rest here at the oak for a spell after checking on the garden. Must’ve dozed off. Can’t say for sure what happened after that.” He picked a hand full of grass and let it get swept up by a wisp of evening breeze. Mildred breathed deep and picked at the dried biscuit mix on her hand. Some of it had gotten in her watch, and she drew her lips tight in mild frustration. She liked that watch. “You want to tell me what you dreamed?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with her clean hand. A few moments passed without an answer, and Mildred sat down in a thatch of tall grass beside her husband. She could feel his hand shaking. “I guess so,” he finally responded. “I’m not sure you’ll understand, and… well, it’s pretty crazy. I’m not sure I understand it myself. Must have been asleep, but – can’t explain it – I felt …awake. More awake than usual. In the dream I was standing in this crowd of people – all kind of people, young, old, and folks our age. And they were laughing and carryin’ on – and dancing. They were dancing to that rock and roll fuss that I used to say was the devil’s dance and the reason deaf people never had it so good.” Mildred let slip a slight smile. “Well, you can bet your biscuits I wanted to leave that place as fast as I could,” Elmer continued. “But even though I wanted to leave, my feet wouldn’t move.” He reached down and touched his ankle. Mildred’s eyes followed his hand. “The people looked so happy, and then I noticed they were all looking at one person who was dancing and laughing with them. Then the person they were looking at looked at me, and…” Mildred reached to touch her husband’s temple, turned gray by two heart attacks, a wayward daughter and a few bad breaks that could have gone either way. “Milly, this sounds awful crazy,” Elmer said, shaking his head. “I just…” Elmer paused, his voice, the once-commanding baritone one would expect from a veteran preacher such as himself, disappearing into a hoarse, almost childlike whisper. It was a rare moment of vulnerability, and for Mildred, it did not go unnoticed. She sat still in the tall grass that swayed side to side in the dying dusk light, holding her husband’s trembling hand. Her eyes traced the old wrinkled lines, and she thought about when those hands held their child for the first time, and how they helped bury her mother when she passed away from liver cancer, and how they could also be swift and fierce. “Tell me what happened,” she said, watching tears streak her husband’s cheeks. Elmer breathed deep and turned his head away from his wife, wiping his face. “Well, the person looking back at me was him.” “Him who?” Elmer’s voice softened. “Jesus.” Mildred stroked his thumb with her forefinger. “At first I couldn’t believe it,” Elmer said, “but he was looking at me, drawing me into the laughter, even though I fought against it, at first. Then he walked over to me and spoke only once.” “What did he say?” Mildred asked, her hand now resting still on top of her husband’s. “He said, ‘Where’s Mildred?’” Mildred withdrew her hand from his and slipped it into her pocket. “Before I could say anything, he took my hand, and we began to dance. I couldn’t believe it – I felt like a little boy, like when I used to dance with my mother in her kitchen. It’s like he reached in, dusted off that memory, and made it new again. There I was dancing with Jesus, and I found myself laughing and singing with him and the others.” Elmer paused a moment, biting down softly on his lower lip. “Then Jesus stopped dancing even though the others continued. Then he looked at me in a different way.” Elmer’s words trailed off and a sudden, unfamiliar sadness overcame him. Mildred patted his hand. “His eyes changed. I became afraid. I didn’t want to look but knew I had to. Can’t explain why. I just knew.” “What did they look like – his eyes,” Mildred asked. Elmer’s face crinkled into a thinking mode, his thoughts on a quest to honor his wife’s question. “They were burning,” he said, “like the last embers of a fire, glowing around the edges but dark in the center – death’s eyes. Even though I looked away, his eyes looked into me, through me – probin’ around into places I had forgotten. Places safe from eyes. But there he was, lookin’ – his eyes were like searchlights, seeing everything. I couldn’t hide. I tell you, I’ve never been so ashamed and scared in my life. No matter how tight I held on, those eyes pulled every piece of darkness out of me and set it right down on the front row, then switched on the spotlight. Like the time my father beat me when I was twelve with a leather harness ‘cause I had lied to him. He said he was beating the devil out of me, but it hurt so bad that ever since, I felt that anything good had to hurt, that sometimes you had to deny and even hurt the body to save the soul. Like the time I whipped Julie when she was fifteen after I caught her drinking beer with her friends.” Elmer breathed deeply and wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve. Leaning his head back against the old oak tree, he continued. “And there was the time after we were engaged, I sneaked over to Embreeville to see an old girlfriend.” Elmer paused, anticipating a reaction, but was met with only silence. “I never told you about that, and I’m sorry. I’m not that kind of man, and I know you know that. But in that dream, I felt like death had a hold of my belt-loops.” As his words burrowed through her ears, Mildred looked at the fading sun in the distance; her grief hung still in the air like stale laundry on a line. They both fell silent for a while. An evening breeze picked up and rustled the leaves above them. The moon traded places with the sun. Mildred put her hands in her pockets and stood up. The tall grass fell against her ankles. “Mildred, I looked into his eyes, and my heart broke in two.” Tears rolled down Elmer’s cheeks as his voice cracked and dropped to a whisper. “Then his eyes changed again. I was bathed in the look of those eyes... like a newborn baby.” The moon blinked in between clouds passing across the sky, and Mildred closed her eyes in its light. “Ovenlight,” she thought. She looked at her hands. They were swollen and sore. Putting her hands back in her pockets, Mildred started off through the tall grass back toward the kitchen door. Elmer turned to look in her direction. He counted silently each step she made. She stopped and turned to look back at him. “I’ll put some more biscuits in the oven,” she said. “Come help me set the table.” Michael Braswell is a retired university teacher and former prison psychologist. He has published books on ethics, peacemaking and the spiritual journey as well as several short story collections.
'Sunday Biscuits' was first published in Stray Dogs by Michael Braswell and Scott Braswell. It has been republished here with the author's permission. Michael's other work on Foreshadow: Peacemaking Boogie (Poetry, February 2024)
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By Ada A. Ohnezeit He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth, the Lord God Almighty is His name. – Amos 4:13 The flatlands spread for miles on end With naught to mark the view; On sun-bright days, the eye can see Things miles away from you. But rolling plains now offer New variety to eye, Gentle mounds and shallow valleys Where prairie grass waves high, We've come upon the foothills E'er the mountains start their rise, The breeze is fresh and cooling As through a stand of pine it sighs. Yet, look ahead, a steeper slope Still, easy to ascend, We now find the scene around us Has become a varied blend Of rocks, crags, higher summits Which surround us, looming proud, No longer easy foothills Jagged peaks to spear a cloud. What is it about mountains That's a challenge to the soul? An all-consuming fever Makes their peaks our urgent goal As though we must defeat them As they strive to touch a star In their vastness, overwhelming; Insignificant we are. So when God made the flatlands, Prairies and the rolling plain, He fashioned them for cozy homes And fields of ripening grain. Then he formed majestic mountains So that we could lift our eyes To their breathless heights of being Just below where heaven lies. Ada Anne Ohnezeit, born in 1925, is a lifelong resident of Western Pennsylvania and has been reading and writing poetry since her youth. Throughout her life, Ada has written many short, humourous verses for friends and family and longer compositions about life, death, family, faith, nature and holidays. These works have been enjoyed only by loved ones of all ages and the church community, as she has never submitted her work for publication until now in her 99th year. These works submitted were chosen out of 64 currently ready for review.
Ada has recently filmed two volumes of her poetry for her church and has been travelling to other local churches to read. She is currently writing and revising work to prepare for a third. Ada’s recorded works can be found here. By Janet Smith Post Perhaps God sees us with double visage: one face that’s written on His palms a one-of-a-kind, with finger prints unmatched, our other face formed from those who went before as Levi was seen third generation still unborn in the loins of Abraham, Jacob, both man and nation, Israel, and Rachel weeping for her children though she lived a thousand, thousand years before. Blood formed from before-blood that formed before, a river flowing down and down again, with its breath, received here and leaving there breath that bears the fruit of haunted longing. Blood transfused with ghosted ancestors: one child whose hand draws a likeness by knowing-born; another whose hand writes a poem -- heard from unthought thoughts. As Mozart’s “one note births another’s sound,” as each night births the day that births the night As sunflowers hold seeds from ancient ones now coffers freshly born in golden-frocks And all their morning faces, facing East the unknown, unseen-pull from present-past. All our fetus parts are formed from mother’s mother, mother, and from and from, till all the men are Adam, all the women Eve. Is this, then, the source of lonely longing? Like the pigeons drawn by magnetic pull, the poet line: “the needle in the mind,” the orphan-heart that’s searching for its home? Eden, the Hebrew name for Paradise, the home we shared in Adam’s loins with God? Janet Smith Post is a poet, novelist and children's writer. She holds a Master's degree in English. Her most recent book is a poetry collection called Eyes of the Heart, Glimpses of the Holy.
By Alice J. Wisler Pockets are for car keys, mints and tissues—the kind my grandmother used to store Wider pockets for a letter, a wallet, a grocery list Carrying, containing, safe-keeping How many times I have looked Wanting to find God inside my pocket To fit my plans, my thoughts, my ways, my desires. Creator of the Magnolia tree, the worker bee, God of miracles, the Red Sea parting, God of the stars and moon and depth of valley Why do I insist that my pocket could contain your magnitude, harbor your excellence and reduce your glory to fit me? Weary, I come to you to beg Living Word, Sovereign, Faithful, Almighty God Gift me larger than pocket faith Save me from myself Alice J. Wisler is the author of six novels, one devotional three memorial cookbooks and Life at Daniel's Place: How the Cemetery Became a Sanctuary of Discovery and Gratitude. She teaches writing workshops across the country. Visit her at www.alicewisler.com.
Alice's other work on Foreshadow: To Words Together (Non-fiction, September 2022) By Bryant Burroughs I wish there were letters from heaven, the return address of my mother and dad, not for an insider’s scoop on happenings there nor answers to the Big Questions, but to feel them again in their script, their sentences: my mother’s encouragement, my father’s counsel. I know the angels, though many, are too busy with God’s matters to deliver mundane messages like some owl at Hogwarts. But if they had an assignment here, could they not drop postcards and letters from the clouds? A voice inside me and yet not me, a very familiar voice, says, “You are their letters. They wrote their hearts onto yours.” It’s not enough, I think. But then I look and listen with all my heart. Bryant Burroughs is a poet and short story creator whose work has appeared in online literary sites such as Agape Review, Clayjar Review, Pure in Heart Stories and Faith and Hope & Fiction. His first collection of poetry is published as Where Do My Words Go? Bryant lives with his wife Ruth and three cats in Upstate South Carolina.
Bryant's other work on Foreshadow: The Widow Whose Son Lived (Fiction, July 2022) The Youngest Day (Poetry, November 2022) The Widow's Psalm (Poetry, February 2023) The Leper and the Healer (Fiction, May 2023) Pearls of Ignatius (Poetry, August 2023) Song of the Star (Poetry, December 2023) A Long Walk Toward God (Poetry, January 2024) All the Dead Heard His Voice (Poetry, March 2024) By Peter Venable Warner Sallman’s 1940 “Head of Christ”-- stained-glass portrait, dust framed in church parlors, looking sideways. Stately. Jesus? No sir, Jesus had no Greek nose, no shoulder-crested flaxen hair, no Germanic cobalt eyes But a Galilean tan-- Hebrew nose-- piercing russet eyes-- curly black hair-- dusty beard. At the food pantry they come with open plastic and cloth bags as we pack juice, cereal, beef stew cans, toothpaste and at the counter: whose face looks at me? The writer has written sacred and secular verse for many decades. He’s appeared in Ancient Paths, Prairie Messenger, The Lyric, The Anglican Theological Review, The Christian Century, The Merton Seasonal and Windhover. His Jesus Through A Poet’s Lens is available at Amazon. He is at petervenable.com and on Facebook.
Peter's other work on Foreshadow: A Saturday's Quartet (Poetry, June 2023) Truth Is Subjectivity (Poetry, April 2024) Behold (Poetry, May 2024) By Joe Bisicchia You appear, dangling that current vessel which presumably once held wine. You offer yourself to a world that is deaf and blind as you sit on your steps outside some old forgotten church, surely hungry and just another avoidable homeless figure you are. I am, you say, and I cannot turn my eyes away. No blistering light like a regretful awakening. Rather, glory of heaven ever near and welcoming. You are for the poor and yet rich, the homeless, home, in what otherwise would be a Godforsaken old town for us all if not for the image and likeness of the Burning Bush here. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, Joe Bisicchia has written four published collections of poetry. He also has written over 250 individual works that have been published in over 100 publications. To see more of his work, visit www.JoeBisicchia.com.
Joe's other work on Foreshadow: Driving to Emmaus (Poetry, May 2024) |
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