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By Sheila Dougal Plant your life like a winter garden Before frost hardens the earth Understand it will cause trouble There’s rubble and thorn, Weeds that must be pulled Others left to propagate, Even among the patient plants, Lest they grow tired of their Circumstance and loosen their roots Plant a garden where your Companion has plans for walls Though a garrison stands ready To keep mercy out. March round Side by side, this tent, a fortress Tangled in your friend’s shield Of arguments. Keep planting Round the walls The hawks are circling, Screeching, ready to steal The younglings hatched under The shade of the olive trees Gather them under your wings Sparrows flutter in the breeze Singing songs of home in the sissoo trees Try not to forget the way is planted With gardens among the ruins Lives descending into the dirt, between Jagged walls of hurt The cost is great The pace is Walk and wait Sheila Dougal lives in the low deserts of Arizona with her husband and sons. Some of her poetry and essays are published at Fathom Mag, Clayjar Review, The Gospel Coalition, The Joyful Life Magazine and other publications. You can also find her at her blog, Cultivating Faithfulness, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Sheila's other work on Foreshadow: Descent (Poetry, June 2023) Ode to the Day (Poetry, July 2023) Invitation (Poetry, August 2023)
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By Julia McMullen I looked for a god The locusts couldn’t eat And when I heard He sent Them, I imagined hands Dripping with honey, Feet like mountains of grain Not all the locusts In this dry desert could hope To devour, A god who could make up For the years the locusts Had eaten away, He who Commanded those sharp-flighted Creatures, whose battle cry Whistled against my door. But when I walked into the desert Alone, feet raw from the pacing This long plague had brought, My stomach remained empty. I found Him, and He, a man, Did not tower before me, And the locusts did not cower Before Him. Instead, he offered A drink, and I lay on a rock To rest my feet. My heart wept like a cold Vessel of water. Such sorrow, to be filled Though desolate heat blistered my cheeks, Though locusts covered The field and sang out in the night, How lonely still to find God In the desert And learn I must face it tomorrow. Julia McMullen is a poet living in the Midwest USA with her husband and young son. When she isn't writing or mothering, she enjoys singing at her local church and tending to her garden.
Julia's other work on Foreshadow: Red Sea (Poetry, August 2023) By Anthony S. Zimmer As the warm water supplied by the Euphrates sprays gently from the shower head onto my shoulders, I recall my father telling me about how our family escaped from Egypt through the Red Sea – “If the LORD had not been on our side, then the waters would have overwhelmed us, The proud waters would have gone over our soul” And the Jordan River – “If the LORD had not been on our side, then the waters would have overwhelmed us, The stream would have gone over our soul.” My father, long dead, tells me now – “The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion, And thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.” Turn again our captivity, O LORD! The LORD splits the Euphrates! and drowns me in the Jordan! that impassable barrier that impedes every pilgrim’s progress, And fire and cloud and Nehemiah pull me upward to Ezekiel’s river, and I flourish in Edenic Zion. Under the warm water of the Euphrates I wait for the LORD, My soul doth wait. Anthony S. Zimmer has served in a variety of pastoral roles in America and South Africa. Bi-vocational, he lives and works at the nexus of business, missions, local ministry and theology. He holds a bachelor’s in Bible and Theology, an MBA, and is working towards an MA in Biblical Interpretation.
Anthony's other work on Foreshadow: How to Be Christians When We Hate Our Job (Non-fiction, October 2022) By Bonita Jewel I watched your heart reel from the shock You said the ground beneath your feet Which you assumed was solid as a rock Was a rug pulled out from underneath I recalled dark, lonely days along the trail When all that seemed to glitter in my hand Was rusted, torn, and broken, set to fail And turn to ashes, dust, to lonely sand But when the brittle gold of fools shatters When the pseudo silver turns to brass Can we then see and know what truly matters What is real beyond the looking glass This, our goal in a broken, winding land To know the solid Rock on which we stand Bonita Jewel visited India when she was 16 and stayed for nearly 12 years. Now residing in California with her husband and three children, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing. A freelance writer and editor for 13 years, Bonita’s writing has recently been published with upstreet magazine, Ekstasis and Dos Gatos Press. You can connect with her at bonitajewel.com.
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