Welcome

Like Prayer

not being able to see 

clearly to the bottom

of the monastery pond

is what some call God, 

holiness, reason to fold 

hands humbly, kneel, 

the unseeable 

we’re seeking

hidden beneath

brackish water,

like longing

unlooked for,

this abbey koi,

swimming up through

what seems stagnant,

is prayer

to the monks,

a moonlit 

crescent

darkness 

sometimes 

draws

shimmering

to the surface

Backyard Buddha

how to attract Buddhas to your yard

Go out on a limb

bow to a bough

Hang up

a clean karma

Buddha bath,

a sound-of-one-

hand-clapping

Buddha bell

Set out

empty

Buddha feeders

filled with

no-self

seed

Be silence

not saying anything

trees don’t

already 

know

Still Being the Sky

the months 

are malas

days pass 

like prayer beads 

through 

fingers 

I want 

to be better 

at reciting what 

has no words

I want 

to be slower 

at God

*

getting old—

don’t recommend it,

unless you live 

in a culture that values 

community more than 

commerce, well-being 

before wealth,

wisdom over 

Wi-Fi

*

how ill-prepared we are 

for days designed 

to break open our hearts 

and keep them open—

not once, but 

repeatedly

*

the nest you can 

no longer reach

I recreate for you

with cupped hands,

broken junco,

your gossamer grief

so heavy to scoop up,

neck broken

out of the yard,

a tattered knapsack

going nowhere,

wind-ruffled

feathers

still being

the sky

Breakfast Bird

I’m no longer a monk, but close—

rising before dawn,

praying in darkness

for an answer to which bird goes 

with which full-throated twirrreeee

or clicking chit-chit outside 

my window, still counts 

as listening to God, 

doesn’t it?

Never easy choosing 

the bird to invite for breakfast—

a spoonful of sparrow’s song

or sweet warbler’s trill

sprinkled on Saturday’s Shredded Wheat 

always gets me looking up to see 

which will keep my day airborne, 

my view and wingspan wide.

Which would perch 

best beside poetry,

cereal, seed.

Daniel Skach-Mills’s poems have appeared in Sufi (Featured Poet), Sojourners, Kosmos Journal, Braided Way, and The Christian Science Monitor. He is the author of The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems, a 2012 Oregon Book Awards finalist in poetry. A former Trappist monk, Daniel lives with his husband in Portland, Oregon. 

If I Believed

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I painted The Birth of Venus. It cements my 

feet to the Uffizi floor like I have just 

found a photo of myself that I forgot I ever took. 

When I shower I daydream about seashells as I 

breathe an angel’s woodwind breath. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was a kitten who died sunning herself, 

sleeping on a sunspot in the middle of the road. 

I tend to go wherever offers me warmth, 

even if I am in danger there. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was my own great great grandmother. 

Cursed the day my son boarded that ship and 

that’s why I cannot look at the sea 

without crying. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was a Nokia ring tone of 

a bouncy masala song. What is it about

its melody that feels like someone is calling 

to see what time I’ll get home? 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was the sparkle in a maang tikka passed down

to twenty daughters. I love kissing my children

between their eyes. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I wrote Gitanjali. I constantly find myself 

dreaming of stringing and unstringing 

my instrument on a breezy verandah.

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was a magazine in Malcolm X’s rifle. I’ve never

cared to build a bridge with an enemy. I’m 

nursing many grudges as I write this. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was the big hand on Princess Diana’s 

Cartier Tank. I spend a lot of energy convincing

myself that I still have a lot of time to 

change things. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my past life

I was a sheisty. Bought on the same street corner 

as the Penn Station incense man. 

I feel safest when no one can see me. 

If I Believed, Pt. II

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my next life I’d want 

to be reborn as the blush in a child’s cheeks

during the Happy Birthday song. My only

job to sit and bloom. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my next life I’d want 

to be reborn as a note in Destra’s throat. Freeing

myself to float over a savannah of prismatic 

masqueraders.

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my next life I’d want 

to be reborn as the dust in Damascus. So I can

keep at least one baby warm in my embrace 

as they wait under the rubble for a savior with a

tractor for arms. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my next life I’d want 

to be reborn as the beads of condensation

rimming a cold glass of water. So that even

in a summer of abundance, I can be 

consumed by someone who needed me so 

bad it hurts. 

I’ve never believed in reincarnation

but if I did, I think in my next life I’d want 

to be reborn as a sunflower. So I never

forget to turn my head to the east 

at maghrib. 

Elizabeth Shanaz is a New York based poet. Her work has been featured in Playboy, Human/Kind, Defunkt, PREE Lit, and the Blue Minaret, among other journals and magazines. She studied writing and literature at CUNY City College before earning her law degree from NYU School of Law. She is the proud child of Guyanese immigrants. You can follow her on Instagram @lizzieshanaz. 

Sacred Is an Anagram of Scared

                                                   for Rose Solari

I have seen the Muse

depicted as a demure angel 

bending over the artist’s shoulder,

but if, as Rilke warns, every angel

is terrifying, then …

To assault the blank page 

with pen or paint is to defy all fears,

the relentless and hollow ones,

from sloppy lines to ridicule,

and the eternal terror of failing 

the vision, that glimpse I pursue 

even if—like a will-o’-the-wisp—

it leads to swampy ground.

Consider this morning’s Visitation:

the towering feral grandeur, tantrum of wings, 

and penetrating gaze. 

                                                   I fear this light

that shatters me whole could shatter me wholly.

How can I and words not fail?

Yet how can I withhold?

Beggar Angel

What can I offer 

an angel sitting by the road 

with an empty bowl 

and folded wings?

Bread? Poems? Devotion?

Or should I kneel in the troubled dust,

crying:

Tell me a story.

Tell me your story.

Yet I cannot promise 

to remember more 

than sunlight dappling 

through the leaves

and an illuminated word or two

from on high. 

Make Me an Angel

                Just give me one thing

                that I can hold on to

                to believe in this living

                is just a hard way to go. 

                              —John Prine, ‘Angel from Montgomery’ 

Don’t start with mud or stardust. 

Try a twist more startling. Begin

with music: a Bach chorale

or an ancient Icelandic hymn 

for the wanton clamor of wings. 

Mold the heart with flames stolen 

from a candle lit for a meal shared 

by lovers or from the trembling taper

a ghostly maiden carries up 

the creaky staircase of a castle

sheltered in the evening shadows 

by a hunched mountain. Reach 

deep into that mountain, seek 

bedrock for strong, steady limbs. 

Let this be no insipid greeting card 

messenger, weak and commonplace.

Surprise me with splendor

and the ease of green pastures. 

Deliver me from the compounding

evils of this conundrum of a world.

Make me an angel—unbound

from bargains, heaven’s foundling,

tempered power alert and new—

to guide and love beside me.

Canonical Hours

Prime: Morning.

In the damp remnants of the campfire

a pattern formed by tiny footprints 

and looping abstract curves—

tracks left by a salamander

sleepwalking through fiery dreams.

Terce: Late morning.

His hot chocolate warms the old woman sheltering

in the doorway. In return, she fills his hands with snow,

new fallen, painfully scooped from the sidewalk.

So cold her gift his fingers ache, but he holds the snow 

until only icy, undeciphered hieroglyphs remain.

Sext: Early afternoon.

Although sunlight floods past lace curtains and falls

in sculpted eddies to the polished hardwood floor,

the looking glass reflects only spangled darkness

and a startled child with moonpearls braided in her hair.

Nones: Midafternoon.

She feeds the carousel horses peanuts

shelled with a deft twist of her fingers.

Enameled heads bob equine thanks until

recalled by distant music to accustomed rounds.

Vespers: Evening.

Dairymen whisper to the waiting ears of angels

secrets never mumbled into lover’s tangled hair

streaking the white pillows under the cover of darkness.

Compline: Night.

‘Gargoyles vandalized,’ reports the policeman,

citing as evidence jagged rubble and chipped concrete.

Unnoticed overhead, a sphinx-eyed, winged lions blaze

ecstatic flightpaths past the dreaming stars.

Matins: Early morning.

Sailors with callused hands jeer as he waits,

holding the polished shell firmly his ear,

‘seeking the sea in the shell of a conch,

would you believe, while sailing on ocean’s back..’

Lauds: Early morning still.

Those sailors hold silent though, when he dives to meet

the sea-dragon glimmering against the indistinct horizon.

Unheralded in the fading moonlight,

man, shell, and the serpent’s ironic eye

slip through phosphorescent waves. 

J. M. R. Harrison has studied at the independent Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and is a graduate from the low residency MFA program of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing in Louisville, Kentucky. Her poems have been published in Antietam Review, Loch Raven Review, Pensive, and elsewhere. 

When was the last time?

You are transfixed by this screen.
Thumb scrolling like a modern prayer
What are you worshipping?

When was the last time
you walked barefoot in a forest?
Let the dirt kiss your feet
let the wind speak plain to your skin
without filters or translations?
When did you last drink water
not bottled in plastic but alive
cold from the mouth of a spring?
Have you eaten anything lately
that knew the sun intimately?
Grown slow by the earth’s dreaming
not rushed through steel and smoke
nor passed through a factory?

When
and I mean, really, when
have you last sat still without needing
a podcast, a ping, a headline, a hit?

We run from silence
like it chases us with a knife
But silence isn’t our enemy
it’s an invitation
from God itself.

The algorithmic machine
harvesting your attention and life force
only holds the power you surrender to it.
It cannot breathe for you.
It will not feel the ache of relief in your chest
when you finally stop running
and instead let yourself
Be.

Maybe
it’s time to take a step back
and put the phone down.
Lay it gently, like a stone at the river’s edge.

Feel your own breath again.
Wild, ancient, still true.

And listen.

Belief

I don’t believe in “evil”
I believe that there are those
who simply did not receive
the Love they longed for
and should have received
as infants
children
teenagers
and adults.
And in the absence of Love
their hearts became hardened
adapting to a world
of terrifying indifference.
All beings, all creatures need Love
more than food and water.
Love is the beginning of all things
it is the cure for all things
So, no.
I don’t believe in “evil”
I believe in Love.

There are seasons

Day, night.
Awake, asleep.
Sound, silence.
Joy, sorrow.
Love, loss.
Summer, winter.
Unity, separation.
Order, chaos.
Expansion, contraction.
Life, death.

Everything moves
in cycles
in the long breath of opposites
leaning into one another.

Look to the trees
the tide
the slow turning of the moon.
Nature reveals it all
the truth of change
the grace of becoming
the necessity of return.

And we, too
are of this world.
Not separate
nor above
but shaped by the same immense forces
that turn the seasons
hold massive celestial bodies in orbit
and stir the wind.

So the next time
you find yourself
slipping into an old pattern
a worn habit you thought
you’d laid to rest
do not harden
Do not rush to shame.

Remember
you are in motion
Even stillness is a tide.
Everything you are
is rising and falling
becoming and unbecoming
like the seasons of the earth
that never arrive all at once.

Summer does not become winter
in a single night.
The leaves do not fall in anger.
They simply let go
when it is time.

And you
you are changing, too.
In your own rhythm.
In your own time.
Just as you must.

I became Love

I saw that there was
conflict in the world,
so I became peaceful.
I saw that there was anger,
so I became kind.
I saw that there was darkness,
so I became light.
I saw that there was
conflict, anger, and darkness
so I became Love.

Arthur Lee is a poet, singer, writer, and meditation guide living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He finds solace and guidance in Buddhism and the Earth. 

Well Being

Space isn’t empty

in fact a well processed inner depth

creates an absence that contains 

so that she can throw herself against the wall 

splinter into all those imperfect pieces 

and you don’t need to pick them up

nor glue them back together 

you simply abide 

as the opportunity for the shattering 

Space is solid

formless but sturdy

so that he can lash out like a viper 

sink fangs filled with vitriol

but you remain untouched 

the antidote to this flesh wound 

is your silent awareness

Space is relational

an inner coherence the disconnected psyche

can project itself upon 

so that they can finally hit rock bottom 

and you remain unmoved, the very ground 

that breaks them open

Space isn’t loud

but an inner silence that listens

when we begin to follow each other over the cliff

resting in stillness rather than acting to stop the fall,

accepting that a thunderous herd cannot hear reason.

Space is clear

dust motes may float but with nowhere to cling 

will eventually settle over a freshly cleaned home 

our presence there makes room for the dross

our quietude becomes a structural support 

when another’s internal walls begin to collapse.

Alchemical Process

Phase 1: shake salt, spin out, go mad, break down, cry out, ask — who am I?

Phase 2: lay on hands, levitate, walk the labyrinth, train with Sophia, descend with Persephone, explore stars, turn over cards, reckon with Chiron, tap points, trace lines, go dark, dissolve into vibrating light

Phase 3: befriend T-rex, apprentice with Baba Yaga, confront the shadow, befriend the dark man, shimmy with Lilith, blind myself, find myself, lose my face, study the hole in the image, turn blue, become dragon

Phase 4: re-collect memories, recant scripts, re-draw maps, rewrite narratives, retrace scenes, extract silver, switch out roles, marry again, rescue the wounded, open doors, break out inmates, light fires, grieve, lament, mourn, renovate the house top to bottom, put every part in its rightful place

Phase 5: pierce flesh, lance heart, strip down naked, enter the waters, sing, draw, dance, write words on paper, add white paint to canvas, learn how to crawl, connect the dots, rediscover home conversation by conversation 

Phase 6: reclaim perception, re-vivify instinct, embrace conflict, draw boundaries, let them go, let me be, suffer jaundice, come down to earth, embody matter, radiate joy

Phase 7: choose accountability, return to marketplace, forge onward, redden and begin again:

                                  what am I?

                                                   how shall I meet the impending diminishment? 

                                                                    with whom shall I share my remaining life energy? 

                                                                                                                                                      how do I choose to die?

Now that I am finally alive

It’s what the symbols represent that matters

She carves high voltage symbols in the air

invisible kanji hanging like prayers in space

radio waves telegraphing truth.

The birds don’t seem to mind --

they fly through the ripples

the squirrels aren’t bothered either -- 

they forage in the afterglow

unaware, uninvolved, unaffected

just their mindless chittering and pecking.

The bald eagle, a kite miles above 

buffeted on shock waves

dips and rides the crest upward

ever expanding horizons unseen 

by the hand that draws with light.

Rite of Spring

Let us enter the inner sanctum

let us enter its hallowed space
let us whisper our devotion

let our heart beat set the pace

let us call forth what’s been written

as strands of DNA through time

let us enter in as keepers

as readers for this holy place

let us claim its common knowledge

claim its symbols and its shape

deeper than our knowing

let the wisdom there shine through

let us bow down at the centre

at the sacred altar let us kneel

let’s uncover what is fixed there

a pattern ancient by design

behold a holy wound, a wound

spun through family lines,

heredity pride and birth rights,

spanning ancestry and tides

let us now attend the ringing

the ringing in our ears

the ringing of our being

draw together let us hear

draw as one and hear it speaking

in the silence without fear.

Lisa Borkovich writes poetry and short fiction. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, most recently in Hamilton Arts and Letters Magazine, Asylum Magazine, Canadian Literature, The New Quarterly, online in IWA/45 Magazine Literary Journal and Amethyst Review and in the anthologies Alchemy and Miracles and NOW HEAR THIS!. She was lives and writes in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.