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By Natasha Bredle I go to the forest to find more of you. Spring is late coming. Naked trees compose a worn blanket over the land, softly stirring above a leaf burial. Branches elongate as if to caress your spirit halfway to the sky. The sun seems a wingspan away. The world is not quiet, but I can hear less of it here. Here, where I stop in the middle of the trail and hold my breath as if my presence is what keeps some beautiful thing from appearing. Here, where I wonder if my arm span can compute the ambiguous distance between us. Here, where I am so close to believing you are not so far. If a deer shifted amongst the brush, I would see it. If it dragged its hoof along the forest floor, I would feel it to the bone. If there was a fox, a rabbit, a robin, I would pledge myself to love them while existing with them. Funny, how you are both everywhere and nowhere. I await something new and magnificent, only to receive what’s already been given. I go to the forest to find more of you. I find you are so much more than something hidden, instead. Natasha Bredle is an emerging writer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work has been featured in publications such as Words and Whispers, Heart of Flesh Lit, and The Madrigal. She has received accolades from the Bennington College Young Writers Awards as well as the Adroit Prizes. In addition to poetry and short fiction, she has a passion for longer works and is currently drafting a young adult novel.
Natasha's other work on Foreshadow: The Answer (Poetry, May 2023)
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 After clicking 'Play', please wait a few moments for the podcast to load. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple, Google and other platforms. Listen to other Forecasts here. Religion professor Alan Altany describes how, as a young man, he wrestled with doubt, panic and anxiety - but how that ultimately led to a deep faith. He reads his poem 'From Here to Eternity', discussing the relationship between the sacred and the secular in his life and writing. Finally, he notes how writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton and Fyodor Dostoyevsky have strengthened and nourished him. Alan Altany, Ph.D., is a septuagenarian college professor of religious studies. You can visit his website here.
Alan's previous work on Foreshadow: From Here to Eternity (Poetry, February 2023) The Seven Deadlies (Poetry, October 2022) Grunewald's Crucifixion (Poetry, September 2022) Habit of Being Wise (Poetry, October 2022) Josh Seligman is the founding editor of Foreshadow. By Patty Willis  Illustration by Patty Willis Disasters are openings in our armadillo skin that keeps us safe from cuts and scrapes but steels us from everything else. We can’t make that mighty push that breaks the shell or the patient tapping that takes all our strength until the moment we feel that lack of air and a longing for oxygen so great that we will do anything to breathe. We stop caring that our faces turn ugly and purple with the effort of pushing. When we emerge, you offer Gatorade and point the way to showers. Come and wash clean. No need to speak of the passage or our old lives. This is where we want to be finally, skin alive to the air, our noses quivering with scents like dogs and bears, our ears tuned to the birds, the earth revealed as holy, calamity as grace. Rev. Patty Willis is a minister, writer, artist and translator based in Arizona. She has also been active in immigration justice and reconciliation between white settler descendants and indigenous people.
Patty's other work on Foreshadow: Pumping Station in the Desert (Poetry, July 2021) By Carol Park At 4 a.m. on my bed I succumb. That old and guttural hiss-- the demon of self-accusation—summons me, and I fall deep into an abandoned mine shaft where midnight waters seep. But then I come to listen to the spacious Voice, the ever-present, ever-loving Wisdom—not that prove-yourself, fit in with others, must get-it-right obsession—then my subterranean Soul truly knows Love. The Spirit throws a rope ladder. My fingers clasp its coarse fibers to climb up and out. Embraced-- joy in who I am, accepted with what I’m not. She points me to a staircase for winding up immensity of her giant tree, past gnarls, lines, and furrows. I ascend past nests birthing finch, crow, and sparrow alike. They open beaks miniscule and long, blunt and keen. I graze myself on sharp points, but aloe leaves bring balm. Songs of joy, tenderness float round the Tree of Life—I spiral up. Carol Park’s homes range from suburbs to wilderness. Six years in Japan altered this California girl. Hiking, gardening, mentoring and reading bring joy. She teaches ESL, writes and involves herself in Christian worship and service. Her MFA comes from Seattle Pacific University. The Haight Ashbury Journal, Black Fox Literary, MiGoZine, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, The Cider Press Review, the Monterey Review, Viral Verse: Poetry of the Pandemic, and New Contexts: 2 and 3 have published her work.
By Natasha Bredle I almost had the answer. But as I held it in my hand, it fluttered away. I thought that might have been it, the fluttering. Each whisper wing beat displacing a breath of air. The absence. The fullness. I didn’t have the gall to reach out and grasp for it, for fear it would have turned to mist. It was enough to almost have it. Watching it flutter away. It was enough to almost have it. Natasha Bredle is an emerging writer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work has been featured in publications such as Words and Whispers, Heart of Flesh Lit, and The Madrigal. She has received accolades from the Bennington College Young Writers Awards as well as the Adroit Prizes. In addition to poetry and short fiction, she has a passion for longer works and is currently drafting a young adult novel.
By Royal Rhodes My body, broken like old bread that kept me alive, bears the sound of this last song I learned on the road, behind and before me. It was food for the way that each day provided. And when it is gone, none will remember. But what will you do with my heart? Royal Rhodes taught religious studies for almost 40 years. His poems have appeared in various journals, including Ekstasis, Ekphrastic Review, The Seventh Quarry, and The Montreal Review, among others. His poetry and art collaborations have been published with The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
Royal's other work on Foreshadow: A Road Through Ohio Spring (Poetry, April 2023) By Charles Hughes from a history professor’s remarks on the occasion of his retirement I couldn’t draw a clock face at the doctor’s. Mistakes—small ones, but I got angry, trying To freeze an old-style clock in my mind’s eye: Black circle, its twelve numbers and two hands. This happened several weeks ago—six weeks? (My wife is nodding, my long-suffering wife)-- An April day. I gazed at a cold sun. Marine biologists who study dolphins Must think at least as much about the ocean Where dolphins live. How else to understand Their diet, travels, language, their diseases? You might therefore suppose historians Would give more thought to time, that vaster ocean Enveloping the history of the world. Historians too often take time for granted-- Marshalling evidence, telling our tales-- And tend not to acknowledge time as such, Leaving the subject to philosophers And poets. Wordsworth warned that “ye who pore / On the dead letter, miss the spirit of things . . . .” All creatures may be such embodied spirits As we all are—all waiting—each a sign-- All creatures creatures of the Incarnation, The angel’s shocking news, God’s tryst with time. Less purposefully perhaps than dolphins, more Like clouds blown by the wind, like logs on water, We move from murky pasts to unknown futures, Our present moments much too quick for our minds. We know so little. I know less and less. I’m saying these things, believing them, but then Faith isn’t knowledge in the usual sense. Especially now with spring in bloom—the scent Of lilacs, the pink flowers on redbud trees, The clouds bright white again—I feel things more And more. “To her fair works did Nature link / The human soul . . . .” I fight for words I want, And it’s getting worse. Is there some mechanism Buried deep in the mind’s dark recesses, So that when words, like dying leaves in autumn, Dry up and drift away, dreams come to life?-- Fraught images make living memories? Sometimes I dream about the London plagues, Plagues in the London of the 1590s. The stench and filth, the screaming suffering. Shakespeare Gone from the city to a country house. Donne fishing in the Thames. And Julian!-- Long dead by then and not a Londoner-- Still mercifully writing in her cell. “His love suffrith us never to lose tyme”-- Though as I’m learning, time will do its work, Time being redeemed, being liturgy, a flood tide, Rising, inflected toward eternity, Prospero’s towers and palaces in reverse, Becoming not dissolving—time, our sea, Drowning us, uncreating us to be. Charles Hughes has published two books of poems, The Evening Sky (2020) and Cave Art (2014), both from Wiseblood Books. His poems have appeared in the Alabama Literary Review, Amethyst Review, The Christian Century, Literary Matters, the Saint Katherine Review and elsewhere. He worked for over 30 years as a lawyer and lives in the Chicago, Illinois, area with his wife.
By Abigail Leigh Pulled back, this skin reaches—rounding too long the past corner, it sags. Pushed forward, these eyes search—hounding too far the future hill they go blind. My body rotting—rots yet declines each offer to die. Why? Between withered lips, weeping acquires appetite: only bitter waters of what was, what is, what if? But despite the acid ache within my cracked chest its apathy at brewed breath, I find life still lifting, one more from this neglected heart of weeds—in then out like fog after a promise of a new day: thick with honey of sweetened streams and green undying meadows, lush with root of revival; for the worn—a whisper of warmth woven in wind And I wonder at my wonder’s ability to survive even amidst shadow-steeped days, what once appeared a hallowed-out-husk —the tender bud of my body rising again, toward light. Abigail Leigh is a harpist and poet from Oregon. As a self-proclaimed paradox, both a creative and analytical being, she draws inspiration from life's dichotomies: the belief that light and darkness, growth and decay, and joy and sorrow travel in tandem. Every season has a story to tell, and she writes because she is committed to unveiling truth from learned experiences. Her poetry has been published in Darling Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Equinox Biannual Journal and Clayjar Review.
Abigail's other work on Foreshadow: A Deeper Calling (Poetry, October 2022) The Mountain Sermon (Poetry, October 2022) The Fruitless Tenant (Poetry, October 2022) This Side of Heaven (Poetry, November 2022) By Michael Stalcup after Charles Spurgeon I know not where I go, but know with whom I brave these bleak and beauty-broken lands and know that though he leads me through the tomb yet even there my life is in his hands. Like Christ, I cannot see around the bend of death except believe the Father’s call and pour my life out, trusting him to mend this tattered soul so ravaged by the Fall-- for all the paths of God will end in pure unmingled good to every heir of grace, and though the world would with its fires lure, its warmth cannot compare to his embrace. So lead me through the valleys when you must, my Father — only this: help me to trust. -- Author's note: Christ knew the resurrection would follow his self-sacrifice and, similarly, we know that we will rise again at the resurrection. Here I am emphasizing Christ's shared humanity with us. Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine... and so, in a certain sense, he had to go to the cross in faith that God would raise him from the dead. This is a great mystery, of course, but by "I cannot see," I am emphasizing that, although Christ knew he would rise from the dead, Jesus, in his humanity, could not "see" around that bend until he lived through it. Jesus was the firstfruits of the bodily resurrection of all humanity, and in his full humanity, I believe it is well within the realm of orthodox belief to speak of Jesus modeling faithfulness for us who also must follow in faith, knowing of our resurrection--and living toward it--without yet "seeing" it with our eyes. Michael Stalcup is a Thai American missionary living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poems have been published in Commonweal Magazine, Ekstasis Magazine, First Things, Presence, Sojourners Magazine, and elsewhere. He co-teaches Spirit & Scribe, a workshop helping writers to integrate spiritual formation and writing craft. You can find more of his work at michaelstalcup.com.
'I Know Not Where I Go' first appeared in Resolute Magazine. It has been republished here with the author's permission. Michael's other work published on Foreshadow: Sometimes Mercy (Poetry, September 2022) Covenant Prayer (Poetry, September 2022) Lines Last (Poetry, September 2022) Cultivating (Poetry, October 2022) By Royal Rhodes after Basho conifers nearby make me look up from my book lost in translation I wanted to write to find love with life again here were better words now cherry blossoms that like snow cover Spring boughs show impermanence layered breaths of clouds moved by the arc of a fan become narratives I know I am watched by eyes in a peacock's tail that blink when I move the ink that darkens outlines how my emptiness cannot be contained all that passes here as theatrical backdrop shows and stops my world our isolation helps nature imagine us in our long absence nature was foreign until I swallowed its soul my mistakes teach me Royal Rhodes taught religious studies for almost 40 years. His poems have appeared in various journals, including Ekstasis, Ekphrastic Review, The Seventh Quarry, and The Montreal Review, among others. His poetry and art collaborations have been published with The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
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