By Caroline Liberatore A stranger made himself a home by the sea and sang a serenade of harmonic breath, meekly rendered through a child's instrument. The gulls, mesmerized, enveloped the friend and his melody. Or perhaps, were themselves folding and unfolding in ecstasy. Such is the rare bliss of wordless sermons. That humble refrain, a mere sidewalk jingle, raptured their wings and carried them home. 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)
0 Comments
By Royal Rhodes after Rainer Maria Rilke When was any human so awake as in the morning today? Not just bloom and brook but even the roof-beam delights. Its own age-hardened edge, the heavens high-lighted, finds its feeling: island, his answer, the world. All breathe and thank. O you anxieties of night, how traceless you sank. From gatherings of light was its darkening made, that itself so purely contradicts. 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) By Laurie Klein like a small body of water, reflective face, upturned: an entity of acceptance. Water embraces the sunken. The near-dying as well as the thriving stir, like plants practicing grace as they lean on the current. Let me be a haven, where shared sediments settle. Where buoyancy reasserts itself. Where you will beckon the weathered vessel, and I will coax the reluctant toe. We’ll soften the chipped margins of shells. Castoffs. The chronically stony. Encompassed, the survivor rises the way a trout breaks from silence, to surface, old hooks and lines ingrown, jaw half-trussed-- wounds revealed, by one seeking a witness. What was it the risen one said? Hark. Flow and do likewise. 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.
Laurie's other work on Foreshadow: Private, as the Small of a Back (Poetry, October 2023) Predawn (Poetry, October 2023) Uphill (Poetry, October 2023) By Erin Clark There go the ships, at least the ones not proving too elderly to sail or getting stuck in the Panama Canal. There go the ships, container-laden, or passenger’ed, the stout car-ferries that zig-zag across glacial slopes awash in tourists, waves. There go the ships: crabbers, lobsterers, harvesters of tuna by the billion. There go the ships bedecked with naval hubris, above the surface and below. There go the ships, yachting-gleaming; there too go the Canadian canoes. I’ve missed a few. There’s always more, a coracle with a rough oar, a catamaran. There go the ships: and there is that leviathan. * Psalm 104:26 there go the ships and there is that Leviathan which Thou hast made to play [in the great and wide sea] Erin Clark (she/her) is an American writer & priest living in London. Her work has appeared in publications in the US, UK and Canada, including The Selkie, the Oxonian Review, the New Critique, Free Verse Revolution, The Primer, Over/Exposed, the Crank, Geez, About Place and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook Whom Sea Left Behind will be out in 2023 (Alien Buddha Press). You can find her online at emclark.co or on Twitter @e_m_clark.
Erin's other work on Foreshadow: Found poem: upon arrival at the Abbey (Poetry, July 2023) Orchard labyrinth, overgrown (Poetry, August 2023) By Bonita Jewel The rocks and hills and trees, the rivers, lakes, and we, and we caught now in abeyance, in this long and lonely dance awaiting some revealing, some long and lasting healing, a tree spreading and standing as home to all things nesting in its branches, our expectancy unspoken, hope unbroken in spite of shattered clay all around, in spite of the sound of weeping in the streets, we meet this all with tears and yet with hope as we grope and wait for the appearance of the Master, the alpha and omega, who writes our story, who walked these roads and wept our tears and yet now reigns in lasting glory. 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.
Bonita's other work on Foreshadow: Heart to Heart (Poetry, September 2023) Key to Faith (Poetry, October 2023) By Laurie Klein It is God’s kiss, gentle as erosion —Mark Nepo Of course, we must all unravel, as we gravely mouth the verbs of change, until ego resists no more than a garment, sloughed. May our souls, exposed, forgo shoring up gaps, as if we can somehow repair one blessèd thing: these closet selves, no more substantial than April air crocheted into a shawl, only need to be shouldered, held again to the breastbone. 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.
Laurie's other work on Foreshadow: Private, as the Small of a Back (Poetry, October 2023) Predawn (Poetry, October 2023) By Miriam Riad I almost feel a little relieved. I am lost, and I must Slow down, The excuse I’ve been hoping for To take my time. Oh well, it feels like, I am going to be late, anyway. Why the rush? I try to retrace The steps That led me here. To no-idea-how, To didn’t-expect-this– My compass has broken, And it is a mystery. Life can be dizzying. My unknowing echoes loudly As it strikes every wall Of this maze. There are a million ways out And, at the same time, Not one. I have craved permission To be lost, like a child In need of a nap. To not be on my way! somewhere, To not be in a hurry, Where there is nothing to do Except be where I am Get my bearings, Feel these feet On the firmness of the earth, And remember what is real. Perhaps This bewilderment Is necessary. Maybe the compass Hasn’t broken, But led me here Where I must be still And know. Be swallowed By truth. What mercy. Sometimes, A good day’s work Is sitting where you are And finding what is Worthwhile, The glimmer hidden Inside the rough rocks, In this strange place Where you never Meant to be. Miriam Riad is a public school teacher, writer and former book editor. Her work has appeared in Ekstasis Magazine, Ruminate Magazine and elsewhere. She is the author of 28 by 29: A Year of Writing, a short collection of essays and poetry.
Miriam's other work on Foreshadow: Distance (Poetry, March 2023) By Jack Stewart . . . it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Matthew 19:24 A scholar now says the word might be the Hebrew for rope, which would make more sense, but who wants a logical metaphor, since faith makes little sense, God is not visible, and from a distance the outline of a camel’s hump almost looks like crimped thread, which, any seamstress will tell you, is difficult to get through a needle and is not usable for embroidery, impossible to pull smooth into flowers, and who would want the accurate color of the cross on a christening gown? I prefer a camel, a beast who can go weeks without water, emblem of sacrifice, who might be able to fold his front knees like in prayer and bend his hump under, then raise his head, lower his haunches, and slide through. Any rider who wanted to succeed would have to dismount and copy that obeisance, curve his back and touch his forehead to the ground, kiss the footprints of an animal that denies itself by nature. He would have to strip himself naked and feel the hot metal of the eye burn his sides as he tried to fit. If he made it to the other side, he would see glory is a different kind of brightness and requires you give up even more, the camel now just a speck in the distance, plodding toward the horizon. Jack Stewart was educated at the University of Alabama and Emory University and was a Brittain Fellow at The Georgia Institute of Technology. His first book, No Reason, was published by the Poeima Poetry Series in 2020, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The American Literary Review, Nimrod, Image and others.
Jack's other work on Foreshadow: The Return (Poetry, September 2023) By Scot Martin What is the meaning of a toad? Yes, an ordinary, overlooked-by-most-humans bufo: the American Eastern toad. Small and squat, thick-browed, warty devourer of worms and crickets. How can you be anything but an icon of humility? You lack the athletic power of a jumping frog; designed to hop through leaf litter in gardens and forest floors. Perhaps you have something to teach us? Abbot Vorobiev proclaimed humility as the secret to great spiritual growth. For it is not solely in feats of prayer and fasting, or even swimming in the Word, but in plain quotidian humility that metamorphosis occurs. Your white belly that never sees the sun, but continually kisses the humus. Your unassuming clandestineness among the sticks and stones declares that the small, overlooked, and the weak matter. You belong not in the thrall of witches, of the domain of the creepy-crawly, but in the Kingdom of Heaven; Jesus created you and your kin, after all. So trill in the moist, spring air. Let your song rise as an Ave to “toad love” and the Glory shining within everything. Scot F. Martin lives with his family and teaches high school English in the Rouge River watershed in southeast Michigan. He has been published in Jesus the Imagination, Front Porch Republic, Stand, Ignatian Solidarity Network, Flourish and other analog and digital publications.
By E R Skulmoski
E R Skulmoski is a poet who lives in the interior of British Columbia with her husband and four children. She homeschools her children and writes poetry and short stories in her spare time. You can follow her on Instagram @emily_skulmoski and read more of her work at https://ofisandwas.substack.com/.
|
Categories
All
ForecastSupport UsArchives
April 2024
|