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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.
 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. Josh and Will explore the most recent Forecasts: 'The Perpetual Pilgrim: Paul Cornelius and Pilgrimage' (Ep 51), 'The Way of a Pilgrim: Prayer and Pilgrimage' (Ep 52), 'What Do We Do When We Arrive?' (Ep 53) and 'On the Camino: Pete Kelly and Pilgrimage' (Ep 54). Among other topics, they discuss leadership in a Christian context, how we can benefit from the Jesus Prayer and the purpose and meaning of devotional practices when arriving at a holy place. Josh Seligman and Will Shine are co-hosts of Forecast.
By Joseph Teti A poem with folly. To ED. Before or after naps, after labor, after being lowered into my bed with tiredness, I’d glance about my room, weighed down still with my anxious, hasty thoughts and graspings after straws. On my right side, above me, on the windowsill, there stood an icon of the Pantocrator. There my gaze hesitated—my vision blurred-- my right eye looked on Him in clear, straight lines, but my left eye blocked itself on my nose! I winked each eye to prove my theorem, but too dead to hold my left eye shut for now, I satisfied myself with half-veiled sight until it would be time to get up--soon-- Joseph Teti is an emerging poet from Hyattsville, Maryland. He is a recent graduate from Hillsdale College and a fierce defender of Platonism and Romanticism.
By Alina Sayre Suffering Jesus, hungry ribs and tin loincloth, sculpted figure on a wooden cross the size of my thumb. Loop of smooth wood beads: all the prayers I haven’t said, a chronicle of shoulds-- but also prayers said and not answered, an infinity loop of asking and denial, stones and scorpions, each bead a rock in a mountain too massive to move. And at the end again: bronzy emaciated tin Jesus, knobby knees and nailed hands. Can you hear me, suffering, beautiful one? Can you teach me to move the mountain of beads? Alina Sayre is the award-winning author of five books, a graduate student of theopoetics and an editor of Foreshadow. You can learn more about her work here, and you can find her book of poems Fire by Night here, where 'Rosary' was previously published. The poem has been republished here with the author's permission.
Alina's other work on Foreshadow: By Sheila Dougal Said the Pilgrim to her friend, “Let's go home!” He looks at her blank He doesn’t understand The language she speaks She points and signs, But his wrinkled brow Remains inclined Said the Exile to the colonized, “Let's wander on home!” She’s looking for kin Longing for another Who knows this tongue. She’s young in the language Her Brother taught: Love means reaching Truth and grace make a complete thought Said the Sojourner to the resident, “Let's gather at home!” She’s looking for a companion To walk this thorn-covered road Neglected by those who have abandoned it Our mother, wayward as she was, Told us the way. Ammi to her husband, She nursed us in faith Asked the Wanderer of the lost, “Do you know the way home? Will you walk with me? We’ll go the way where free means You can bend your knee.” Asked the Redeemed of the bound, “Do you want to go home?” Won’t you walk with me? There’s a way where high is low And lost is searched for till found Come home with me, friend I’ll motion and sign I’ll walk slow, and if you need to stop, I’ll take the time Come home with me, friend I know you’ll see The goodness of walking this road With me And when we get home The air will be sweet The land I’ve heard is vast Our Brother we’ll meet 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) By Michael Lyle the man who never pays attention weeps the councilman who wants me gone scribbles in the bulletin margins while his wife holds a Bible between her face and mine a woman beside her nodding husband studies me like a child might an ice cream cone I mention evil, and heads turn to follow a wasp’s perambulations in winter’s dim-lit nave the elderly usher by the door hands a bulletin to the buzz-cut man in a black duster who threatened the secretary Friday afternoon Michael Lyle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Everywhere of Light (Plan B Press), and his poems have appeared widely, including Atlanta Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Crannóg, The Hollins Critic, Mudfish and Poetry East. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
Michael's other work on Foreshadow: Wick of the Soul (Poetry, October 2022) Tennis Players (Poetry, October 2022) Yahweh (Poetry, October 2022) Family of God (Poetry, October 2022) "Carvered" for Christmas (Non-fiction, December 2022) By Patty Willis My heart opened wide yesterday, Thanks be to God cracking from the force of my gifts aligning with your urgings. Each time this happens I wake the next day in wonder at how connections like arteries and vessels can be rerouted until they flow unhampered to and from the heart bursting out with such energy at first and then slowing as horses do, after a sprint as runners do—bending forward, hands on lower legs, and then in a split second they remember that big board with their name and time recorded for everyone to see. We watch from our comfortable chairs: athletes victorious, jumping, no longer tired, a second wind that carries them in a victory lap around the field. But who deserves our thunderous praise, our feet slapping the bare stone? We learn to be silent, tears coming to our eyes. Even when we are alone, we’ve lost the habit of falling to our knees. My heart broke open when I saw them arriving: familiar people slipping into back rows, names forgotten but not to You. Thirty minutes before, they had heard a call to come not bothering to comb their hair or iron a shirt: Come as you are, You said. You will be fed. Their hunger is the thread that holds my Sabbath like the fence around a medicine wheel upon which we can tie our hopes. Our hunger satiated at last by the wide view, the wind moving clouds, the mountainsides once covered in buffalo herds at last seem hospitable for their return. Pray for us, we say to the stranger next to us as if we each hold a piece of the puzzle. All put together we would become the night sky that waits above the clouds for us to roll out our sleeping bags and lie back, each star a heart asunder. Thanks be to God. 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) Openings (Poetry, May 2023) |
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