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By Jane Blanchard The Spirit moved across the Earth, And what was made was given worth; Since man and woman chose to sin, Their children must be born again. So those enslaved could be set free, There was a parting of the Sea; And still they wandered through the sand Until they reached the Promised Land. Yet sadly predisposed to err, They proved unfaithful anywhere; The Son who would deliver them At last was born in Bethlehem. This Savior showed them how to love, Thus how to serve the One above; He made the Father pleased and proud, So said the Spirit to the crowd. Christ, knowing why he had been sent, Proved perfectly obedient; When prayer did not spare him the cup, The cross indeed was lifted up. Within the tomb he would not stay So followers could learn the way; Once he ascended, they felt lost Until the gift of Pentecost. Let all of us each day embrace A life of goodness, peace, and grace; Redeemed, baptized, sustained, inspired, We have what Eden’s own desired. A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia, USA.
'Continuum' was first published in Intégrité. It has been republished here with the author's permission. Jane's other work on Foreshadow: Liturgy (Poetry, November 2023)
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By Peter Venable Wrightsville. Wind blustery at thirty knots. On the horizon leviathan thunderheads advance, promise a deluge too soon for comfort. Wind surfers zigzag between Crystal Pier and Wier Rock Jetty, their crescent sails like painted sickles of aqua, crimson, and lime, cleave through whitecaps and skirt each other. One pelican guides inches above waves, black-tipped wings steering his purpose. From the pier two pigeons scud across, land, court, bob and rub their bills, brazenly mate by blankets of curvaceous co-ends. A tattooed guy points, thumbs up. A couple cuddles like spoons oblivious to winds, sails, pigeons-- she coos, he groans as a few feathers blow over dunes and God knows where. Thunder. Windsurfers tack to shore-- bathers stream to the street-- a beach umbrella somersaults-- pigeons fly to roosts under the pier. Rain pours graphite sheets, smudging seagulls, sandpipers, and one wet-suited surfer riding a crest seconds before lightning strikes. 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) By Evie Huang your Beauty is a glowing lamp that bursts through the night, no, it’s blinding me, no filling me with light, no, the lamp transforms into a work of art it’s transforming into an echo of myself morphing between me and You and meandYouandYouandme i reach for your presence and words are tumbling from my mouth to the ceiling, creating holy ground but it is all somehow inadequate. i keep digging deeper and deeper and then there is an aching arrow in my heart i pull it out and gaze at the wound, burned clean by your blood. i feel a sharp soreness in my soul but it is welcome. the rivers well up and overflow, my voice is breaking under the weight of it all for You are cleaning me from the inside out. and as i bow down on bended knees, i see You in my own reflection lighting the way. Evie Huang is an emerging author of poetry, songs and more. She is currently an undergraduate student at Azusa Pacific University and was raised in Southern California, where she still lives and works. Follow her on Instagram at @jubileespoems.
Evie's other work on Foreshadow: I will fill this house with glory (Poetry, September 2023) By Royal Rhodes Some ancient saints said crucifixes spoke -- just tales we thought designed for simple folk. Yet now as all my terrors I must face I hear my name, but voiced with matchless grace, channeled by the artist in this art that both convicts me and redeems my heart. My will be done -- not his -- my self-volition bred despair that hungers for contrition. A toxin -- my devices and desires -- poison heart and lungs as life expires. Catastrophes this routed flesh must bear, as drugged and dying eyes at nothing stare. My sight-lines now must zero in on loss, yet shadows hold the outline of his cross. Light from Light, the Logos took on flesh that let humanity and Godhead mesh. Can mortal darkness break in sudden light? A poet wrote this: Look ! The West grows bright. Like the tree in Eden at our Fall, this tree restores that Paradise for all. Like me, he wept, yet wiped my every tear. Love itself is what had brought him here. 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) A Pilgrim's Song (Poetry, May 2023) Journey to Silence (Poetry, July 2023) Remember David (Poetry, July 2023) Magnolia (Poetry, October 2023) A Morning Walk into Light (Poetry, November 2023) A Crisis of Angels (Poetry, December 2023) Birth Night (Poetry, January 2024) By Susan Shea I wake up in my high count sheets threadbare thin in spirit today feeling perishable I gasp for soul I need fresh air the inner life I need to take excursion to the ancient paths to find a perch to see them from above I’ll find a ferris wheel oh wheel refresh my drive take me to the highest place to rest to heal my bones make wise my simple make me know again all bliss comes from a turn return to sacred Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was born in New York City and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. She has returned to writing poetry in 2023, and this year she has been published in several dozen journals including Ekstasis, The Bluebird Word, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, Poetry Breakfast, Book of Matches Literary Magazine and The Agape Review, as well as three anthologies. Recently, she has had poems accepted for Feminine Collective, Military Experience and the Arts, Tiny Wren, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Green Ink Poetry, The Avalon Literary Review and Clayjar Review.
By Peter Venable —Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript We peek through Hubble’s eye or blink at quantum worlds where bits bubble and pop, and hang our hats: God is unscientific! Not experimental, immeasurable, nor logical-mathematical verifiable-- a flummox of reason. Still, do we not yearn for that oceanic feeling when inner and outer feel as one, raptured in wonder and awe? Inhaling salt-spray as cold waves cleanse bare feet. Savoring plump blackberries at trail’s edge. Rubbing wet, lichen-splotched rocks at precipice abyss. Tonight a gray fox steals through backyard moonlight. We quest as our clocks tick-tock our lives away. I conclude God, the ultimate One is the inward truth, not fitting in or outside a rational or relative box. His truth plummets from my brain to my heart where I cling to the cross-- Truth’s paradox. 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) By Laurie Klein Blessed are those who love the earth with their feet as they walk. —Erin Geesaman-Rabke Sundown calls a goo-mover forth. I could be Nature’s un-ribboning scripture (all spit ‘n shine) or A seeker’s itchy foot, re-pilgriming time. Only Ingenious eyes retract. Watch. Wherever Longing paves the way, the most passionate S t r e t c h often entails the lifelong seep . . . Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens and Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. A grateful recipient of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, she lives in the Pacific Northwest and blogs, monthly, at lauriekleinscribe.com.
This poem first appeared in Laurie's recent collection of poems House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life (published by Leap Day Eve). You can read a review of this book by Foreshadow contributor D.S. Martin here and buy it here. Laurie's other work on Foreshadow: Private, as the Small of a Back (Poetry, October 2023) Predawn (Poetry, October 2023) Uphill (Poetry, October 2023) There Must Be a Way to Listen (Poetry, November 2023) By Caroline Liberatore What child is this that laid to rest nestled in the womb of a stone bridge, stoic in bed? What child is this that knelt on slush tossed aside by anonymity, now raining his croissant-shaped delight upon the sparrows? What child, what melody haunts the murmurings of pigeons and polyester traffic and hums of borrowed language -- He is the trill under the bridge beckoning bent necks under mildew martyred shelter, perforating space with meaning. Caroline Liberatore is a poet from Cleveland, Ohio. She has also been published in Ekstasis Magazine and Ashbelt Journal.
Caroline's other work on Foreshadow: Library Liturgy (Poetry, February 2022) Ecology (Psalm 84) (Poetry, August 2022) Unearthings (Poetry, September 2022) April Snowfall, a Mercy (Poetry, April 2023) Grievances (Poetry, June 2023) Seaside, OR (Poetry, November 2023) By Bryant Burroughs All the dead heard his voice, those in graves or the sea or the place of the dead. They all heard what he said when he called a four-day man, as his sisters named him, their grief outweighing faith. They had sent a desperate note: “The one you love is terribly sick and needs you.” But it was too late. Death makes cruel things of love and hope, for what good is hope if God chooses to stand afar off? He stood facing the black hole and touched the cave’s cold cleft. The dead don’t stay dead forever, he said. And they will come out, leaping for joy and laughing that all is well. Death, I hear your laughter. You laugh at these little ones wrecked by grief. You laugh at their tears and their sorrow. I’m coming for you, Death. You think you’re coming for me, but I’m coming for you. I am your Destroyer! And you, Death, will be no more. None shall wander, all shall abide when Death’s grip is cast aside and the prison gates of Hades open wide. I shout to you, friend Lazarus, come out here! And the one called came out, death forgotten as if waking from a dream. 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) By Peter Lilly Imagine the water rushing, Tugging at the loose soil cliff-face Of sheets of black slate, And grey rocks like knots In a sanded beam of earth. Imagine it running where you stand, Changing the shape of the banks, Demonstrating a frozen moment, A photograph of scattering seed, And the exposed roots of thirsty trees Stunted by the summer’s dry. Imagine that burnt book of leaves Caught in the dark colander of barky roots Racing in the new rush Of quickly falling rains, Rushing waters, Washing currents, Drying stream-beds. Imagine the force Smoothing this stumbling wilderness Into the peaty garden path That beckons you take off your shoes To feel the earth. Imagine the steam rising from the burning bush As it evaporates the downpour And speaks of emancipation. Lilly is a British poet who grew up in Gloucester before spending eight years in London studying theology and working with the homeless. He now lives in the south of France with his wife and son, where he concentrates on writing, teaching English, and community building. His recent and forthcoming publications include East Ridge Review, Dreich, Green Ink Poetry, The Agape Review, Paddler Press and Ekstasis. His debut collection An Array of Vapour is now available here.
'Imagine the Water' features in Peter's second collection A Handful of Prayers, which is forthcoming with Wipf & Stock. |
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