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Splintered bones set hard, out of place.
I limp among those I cherish, gripping onto furniture, before I sit, defeated. From the crucifix, your steadfast eyes say, What’s mine is yours. To offer this pitted stone—my heart—is pain; but you do not take a hammer. Quiet light penetrates, halos me, burns the muscle-memory that mires my feet. How cheap the word miracle—one step, and now immersed in grace, I stride, serene, across the river’s bridge. The agony was always yours. The pasture greens. Your breath is holy. I fill my lungs. -- Emma-Jane Peterson writes for magazines in the US and the UK, where she lives. Her poems are published in BoomerLitMag, The Clayjar Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Metphrastics, Penstricken, Black Nore Review, Prosectrics and Pure in Heart, among others. She is the co-author of a book of children’s Bible stories (Parragon).
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Clumped among the frothing mounds,
flung onto shore, a tiny wholeness in baby bib overalls, awaits the finding: this is what you have for me. Brush away the flies—shoo now, gull! unweave fingers of emerald, garnet, opal seaweed, and midwife a new sort of glean from out the lashing waters onto my-side, land-side, sand-wide world. Make his cradle in the turn of my hand and lift him to where my neck is a cleft to share dry skin and warm, encircled by wind moans in lullaby. We both are foundlings found in the finding. All that the tides have snatched from us is now repaid in this, a crowning catch-- perfect transfer of seed to the barren, speech to the silent, orphan to his rest. -- Michelle Shelfer and her husband, Jerry, operate a non-profit called Prepare a Room Ministries, which seeks to help those hurt by abortion and disciple the next generation to embrace life and the Giver of life. Her poetry has been published in Ekstasis, Penwood Review and Solid Food Press. Her poetic themes often centre around motherhood. She can be found at michelleshelfer.substack.com/ and on social media at @preparearoom. The evening breeze through the window,
As I look back into the low Tree dancing to the silent play Of clouds and moon, and hue of gray; Pale blackness on the deep'ning sky, Its shades of dark made beautiful By lack of light, absence of ray, When silence ends a Maker’s day-- Empty'ng beauty. Bending echo Of weathered creation outgrows The night. Then, a low distant cry Striates hist'ry. Lost in time full Laces of blue displayed his rule, While the trees sing its Lullaby. -- Yannick Imbert teaches theology in southern France at Faculté Jean Calvin. He is a Tolkien scholar and publishes books and articles at the intersection of theology and culture. He has also published online in Transpositions, Ekstasis, Macrina, Inklings Studies and other theological journals. He writes in French at delagracedansencrier.com. What a waste to be hiding,
didn’t we think? So I gave you my sight line and the quiver behind, shedding several old skins in the course of my tears. You rowed down that river, the heart of my darkness, and tethered your soul to the floodplain spine. You were a part of my yesterday, my tomorrow too, and this moment, I’m hoping, in the wounds broken open, the courage you planted finally took. And I’ll grow into love because of you. -- For K.P. and R.H. Aisling Cruz is a Midwest-based poet and artist. Her work has appeared in Gotham Literature, Agape Review and Oyster River Pages, among others. In my soul is a gate
I cross every morning, Mindful of the great Bright dawn daily rising. I cross every morning, The threshold of my soul – Bright dawn daily rising Of His constant presence. The threshold of my soul – Ambiguous border Of His constant presence – Receptacle of Grace. Ambiguous border: In my soul is a gate, Receptacle of grace. In my soul is a gate. -- Yannick Imbert teaches theology in southern France at Faculté Jean Calvin. He is a Tolkien scholar and publishes books and articles at the intersection of theology and culture. He has also published online in Transpositions, Ekstasis, Macrina, Inklings Studies and other theological journals. He writes in French at delagracedansencrier.com. after artist Michael Healy
Can I hold your image as the panes of glass? There the golden sunrise nudges up the field, rosy luminescence bleeds out from a flower. The blueness of water skips on the rock that once carved a valley from the spotted hills. Every place you walk in whinnies with light, though I often do not notice this. Sometimes I spend hours wanting to be noticed, just to find myself curled over your shoulder, covered in dust and merino spirals. You tell me I have been here for years. -- Aisling Cruz is a Midwest-based poet and artist. Her work has appeared in Gotham Literature, Agape Review and Oyster River Pages, among others. I’m not good with plants
But I found this seed, if you can help. There are some cracks, Exposure has caused it to suffer. The soil doesn’t look good: Dry and inhospitable. Are you surrounding it with manure? Is that the right thing to do? The plant looks sick. Ashen leaves with brittle branches. Do we need to resoil? Replant? Will fresh water be enough to save it? Can you take this seed, this dream, in my heart – That time and heartache have beaten down, And make it something more? Will you breathe new life into this and cause something to grow? -- Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 60 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine and many more. He won the 2023 Barbe Best Short Story and Reader’s Choice Award for his short story, 'Redemption'. Currently, he has regular nonfiction articles being published by Solid Food Press on fatherhood entitled 'On Raising Savages'. It is sometimes a radiant world,
this life in Christ. But only sometimes. Sometimes I am shy, afraid to name the body, to describe the strangers whom I love. The little nun who was never a nun, in her house of dusty corners, who worked in hospitals for years, with her smile and white curls, who studied and wrote songs and was never beautiful, but strangely weightless in a reappearing way, like sunlight, high and vaporous, within a winter day. Or the eternal neighbor who walks within herself, never selfish for news of others, yet always going to the doctor with some friend who’s lost his sight or is becoming distanced from his mind and slowly slipping away. She went to boarding schools and cleaned summer cabins, one arm withered by polio, although you’d never know it unless you chose to notice. She offers salvation in a neighborly way. Or the man with infants’ hands, so soft and unscarred that they might have just come from the womb, who talks, often, of cold moons and a creek-bordered farm where his ancestors labored and died, too soon. If I were to make a mosaic on the wall it would have to hold them all, each figure made of glass set in stone, each tesserae catching light and holding it, obscuring my perceptions and showing that they’re limited. When light shows brightly the forms are almost lost, the lines of colored glass embossed beyond simple distinctions, and I, and those I love, hide within the radiance. -- KPB Stevens is an Episcopal priest, poet and painter who lives in Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Cardinal Sins, Squalorly, Inwood Indiana, Orion Headless and The Christian Century, as well as two EASE Gallery chapbooks, Wildernesses: Physical & Spiritual and Trespasses. His story 'My Beam of Light' was selected for The Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2014. A year after she died
I stood in an oceanside church. The waves were echoed by chalice and stained glass. A year in which I never said “believe.” What is belief within the hollowness of grief? A year, a numbed highway, a blank staring at the day, a dissipation of memories. Then, adrift in stained light, we stood and said, “I believe,” I and these strangers who were holding my belief for me. I believe. God of wind and the ocean, and the woven pattern of the waves — of the birds, their wings wide, their bodies seed pods on the breeze -- God of the sky, the birds' cries, the whales breaching by the boat -- shadows move, sunlight strikes deep chasms in the sea — jellyfish slide by the boat's side — God of the world's eye — shadows deepen, shadows shatter into shapes that sing — gems of color along each wing — God of perception and perceived — God of everything. I believe. -- KPB Stevens is an Episcopal priest, poet and painter who lives in Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Cardinal Sins, Squalorly, Inwood Indiana, Orion Headless and The Christian Century, as well as two EASE Gallery chapbooks, Wildernesses: Physical & Spiritual and Trespasses. His story 'My Beam of Light' was selected for The Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2014. After the champagne toasts,
the fine bottles of red and white, the sugary dessert wine, the speeches in Spanish and English, the bride and groom were led across to the aero- service to ride a seaplane sweeping above forest and lakes, around the High Peak point after guests showered bird seed instead of typical confetti. We hurried to the bridge to watch a roaring take-off. The Best Man, a church bell ringer, arranged everyone heart-shaped on the beach sand to greet the pair returning, as we sang for the bride's birthday. And as we dropped our hands we felt how hard it was to let go. -- Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired teacher. His chief delight is hearing from many former students whose lives are helping to heal the world. |
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