Welcome

The Snowflakes of Summer 

Day by day, 

hour by hour 

your form undergoes metamorphosis

like ecstatic butterflies bursting open.

As one poppy withers,

three more burst forth:

bright salmons,

alluring reds,

whites splashed with pink, 

violets wrinkled in crescendoing shades. 

Inside them:

yellow and black light bulbs,

sprouting hairs

like hypnotic rays of light. 

Golden pollen glistens,

smeared everywhere.  

Living gossamer 

cosmically unfurling. 

So delicate it melts at a touch,

petals cascading down. 

Each bloom unique,

like magical fingerprints of snowflakes. 

The ecstatic shivers 

of being wrapped in warm colors. 

A testament to divine existence

and exquisite intelligence. 

Tear Catcher’s Alchemy 

I want to catch my tears 

one by one.

There is one angry drop,

enraged by injustice.

Another in despair,

sad and longing.

Another frozen with fear.

I want to collect a sampling 

of these tear personalities.

One by one, 

until my tiny, 

iridescent glass

tear bottle is full.

On a sunny day, 

I will place it on the windowsill.

The prayer lights 

will strum the plethora 

of its harp, peaceful rays. 

Shooting multitudes of colors,

infusing my tears into a mix 

of metallic lights.

As the chemistry 

of light and time 

takes over, 

my tears will transform 

into a perfume—

rich, flowery, citrusy,

illuminating, uplifting, wise. 

I will wear it proudly. 

The finger prints 

of my sweat emotions

will further alchemize its fragrance. 

Then I will bathe myself in the ocean, 

purifying and shedding

the last trace. 

All remnants of my pain

becoming unperceivable in its vastness.

Isabella’s Dreams 

The desert, cracked and parched,

anguishing for rain to kiss it.

A connection, 

warm reunion:

two souls touching.

Finally, the empathy of rain

floods a loud thunder of relinquishment.

Her drought-suffocated tears, quenched.

Unspoken longing,

a thousand years of prayer.

Unlike the hardened, parched soil,

unable to absorb rain.

Her land absorbed all of it.

Primed in enriched receptivity.

The flood of her tears

fed poppy seeds.

She is now a lush, 

red ocean of poppies in full bloom.

So far and vast,

the eyes cannot grasp its end.

Perennial perpetuity,

eternally reawakening each spring.

The longing’s thirst quenched

by the victory of dreams.

Fire, Water and Light  

When his words would touch her, 

goosebumps would rise,

small hills erupting, 

hidden from his eyes. 

She would leave subtle clues,

quietly smirking,

illuminating the slivered crescent moon. 

He would light small tea candles. 

One by one

splashing dew drops 

upon the aura of her skin. 

This was a love that could fully fertilize. 

They had the rare, essential elements:

fire, water and light. 

But he carried a birth mark. 

One that reminded her 

of a former lover’s rancid wine. 

She thought he would not accept her. 

Her porcelain body unmarked, 

steeped with the flavor 

of tea leaf innocence. 

Her tribe: the ephemeral wind. 

His: lattice ancient roots. 

Their hearts were half water-filled caverns. 

Their interplaying waves, 

quivering touch. 

Cloistered,

a meek candle 

hiding the breadth 

of their capacity to love. 

Her tribe called her. 

She moved like the breeze,

extinguishing the oxygen 

of their first flint fire.

Shahrzad Taavoni is a poet, artist, licensed acupuncturist, and MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Baltimore. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and dual Master’s degrees in Acupuncture and Herbology. Her work draws on the healing arts to explore themes of mythic consciousness, resilience, and ancestral resonance. Her poetry has appeared in Persian Heritage Magazine, and she has served as a reader for Honeycomb Literary Press. Shahrzad also integrates poetry, voice, and sculpture into her immersive light shows, which have been presented at Maryland Art Place, School 33 Art Center, and Subtle Rebellion Gallery. Follow Shahrzad online via Instagram @shahrzadtaavoni; Facebook at facebook.com/shahrzadtaavoni; and www.AcupunctureInTowson.com.

Conversations with Dead Anne

I don’t know what happens after we die. But as a useful practice I’ve been imagining that some aspect of “me” is able to revisit my life after I die.

So much gratitude, love, and learning.

And two feelings as related to hard times.

Compassion. Deep, deep compassion for the challenges of this human realm. My human heart softens at this felt-sense reminder of the truth of what the Buddhists call dukkha. Suffering.

It’s not all that there is. Nor the heart of what is. But it is certainly part of human realm experience.

Secondly, playful laughter. That is what I cared about?!

My everyday preoccupations and anxieties are right-sized. Made smaller. So much smaller.

Pop.

The field of love grows bigger. Love for myself. Love for others. Love beyond self and other.

Dead Anne has lots to teach living Anne.

May I listen.

What conversation do you want to have?

Anne Gorsuch writes short invitations to internal and relational practice informed by her meditation practice and work as an intuitional coach. She shares occasional brief reflections like this one with subscribers via https://www.annegorsuch.com/.

Fleeting Eternities

               “Every moment is its own glimpse of eternity.” — Rev. Dr. Eric Park

In April the sun set on the life of a beloved family friend and at her Memorial Service, her Reverend said the above.

It moved me to my core.

I am one who ponders the mystery, joy and heartbreak of life.

I have always wished to understand others and the world around me more deeply.

That desire has become more pronounced since my son was born in 2010 and my father died in 2011.

To experience the beginning of one life and the end of another in such close proximity transformed how I process my own borrowed time on this planet.

Not only did I witness the beginning and ending of two lives, but both lives are intricately intertwined with my own.

My beloved father gave me life and I brought forth my beloved son’s life.

It is a profound experience — one I have been grappling with ever since my son’s first breath and my father’s last.

At the Memorial Service, when the Reverend said, “Every moment is its own glimpse of eternity,” I felt a measure of calm I have rarely felt when I reflect on motherhood and life without my father’s physical presence.

As I have adjusted to life and the world without my father, so too have I had to adjust to my son’s constant evolution.

When I lost my father, my son was a cherubic infant. In his face I see the passage of time, and the shift of the world as it was when my father was alive and the world as it is now.

The times I have wished to share an aspect of raising my son with my father are infinite.

Yes, my son is my father’s continuation in the world but that does not change the fact that I wish he could be a part of the growth of this individual he had a hand in creating.

An individual who has so much of his grandfather in him — from his kind, striking green eyes, to his curiosity and compassion, to his propensity for dry, chapped lips.

The Reverend’s words, however, made me realize that although every life ends, we carry those whom we have loved and who have loved us.

Every moment, too, is a lifetime in that we never know which moment will be the last.

The moments we experience and the moments we share end up defining the measure of our lives — and become the connection to those whose light we carry.

Given that I became a mother and a fatherless daughter within a year, the concept of time for me has been transformed.

There was life before motherhood, when my father was healthy, alive and an integral part of my every day.

There was life in the year after my son was born, when motherhood redefined the wonders of being alive and simultaneously, my father’s light was diminishing.

And then there has been life since my father’s death, when I have had to make sense of the world without my father in it.

Almost every milestone of my son’s has been colored by the physical absence of my father.

Witnessing the becoming of one’s children is awe-inspiring — and I have often wished I could share these moments with my father.

Next week my 14-year-old son will graduate middle school and as I prepare for his big day, I have found myself feeling very moved.

Even as I write these words, tears have sprung to my eyes.

This moment in my son’s life is yet another milestone.

He will be in high school in the Fall — this being whose heart once beat within me.

And my father has missed it.

That is a sadness I will always carry and something only those who have been fortunate to experience deep, unconditional love will be able to understand.

How I have yearned for my father’s physical presence as I have done the most important work I will ever do — raising my son to be a force of good in the world.

And yet my father has been present — in part because we are his light but also because every moment we shared remains.

When we lose loved ones, we must learn to live with their essence, rather than their presence, but if we look at every moment as a glimpse into eternity, our dead are never truly gone.

When my son receives his diploma, that moment will become its own eternity and I know my father — along with all of our dead — will be beaming on the other side of the veil.

Every moment is fleeting but every moment is also eternal.

Originally published in Medium, May 28, 2025.

Naomi Raquel Enright is a writer, educator and consultant based in Brooklyn, NY. She is also a National SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Facilitator and a New York Appleseed board member. Raised in New York City, she was born in La Paz, Bolivia to an Ecuadorian mother and a Jewish-American father, and is a native speaker of English and Spanish. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Kenyon College, and studied at the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. She writes about racism and identity, loss, and parenting. Her essays have appeared in several publications including Hold The Line Magazine, Family Story, Role Reboot, Streetlight Magazine, among others, and in the anthologies, The Beiging of America (2017), Sharing Gratitude (2019) and Streetlight Magazine 2021 (2022). She has been interviewed on a number of podcasts, including Global Citizenship & Equity, Inclusion School, War Stories from the Womb, The Mixed Creator, Project 25 and Dear White Women. Her essay The Hidden Curriculum, received an Honorable Mention in Streetlight Magazine’s 2021 Essay/Memoir Contest. Her book, Strength of Soul (2Leaf Press), was published in April 2019. 

A Golden Rebirth

To rise from her ashes,

the Phoenix must die first.

From afar, she looks magical and regal,

but from inside, she is just an entity 

that must fully depart from existence, 

with the light itself turned completely black. 

From inside, she doesn’t know

she will be reborn.

From inside, she feels what each being feels 

when slain by a word’s blade.

Every part of her body and soul

is not just peacefully passing away,

but fiercely consumed by blue flames.

She dies in pain,

and she screeches in pain as she rises again.

And yet, every time she resurfaces,

she does so entirely and purely.

She rises in kindness, and beauty, and love – 

not untouched by the unwarranted act

of being silenced,

but undeterred in what she is at her core.

The light she carries within 

cannot be extinguished,

no matter how many times 

she is torn apart. 

A Golden Dandelion Puff

Dandelion puffs appeared,

as if from nowhere,

blown by an invisible current,

of an unexpected gust of wind,

and carried away to settle, at last,

on a different patch of land.

They looked happy,

like diaphanous, white pixies 

flying and chatting

about the next place to visit.

And although I am happy for them,

my heart broke in two,

as if struck by lightning.

It was in May, 

when infinite, fine clusters

of feathery bristles

with seeds attached to them 

drift freely, magically,

that my mother took her last breath

on the same plane I exist.

Yes, I saw her as a seed,

smiling and dressed in white,

hanging by a barely visible thread

of a silken, umbrella-like shape, 

and sailing on an inaudible, angelic song,

in the immensity of the universe.

And I am trying so very hard not to cry,

seeing dandelion puffs fly away,

for each will take root 

in some other, unknown space . . .

On a Golden Gust of Wind

The pain of being silenced, 

like a wind contained in a box – 

the pain of hitting the walls

over and again, and seeing no escape;

the pain of giving up,

of no longer looking for a way out;

and the pain of fighting, 

and holding on to hope

in loneliness,

in inescapable darkness . . .

Oh, and the pain of the realization

she always had a voice –

a voice so unique

nobody could hear it from inside

rigid structures man holds as sacred;

a voice kept in chains,

forged from pure light;

a voice meant to free . . . 

She was always outside the box, 

trying to get in.

She was always wild, 

playful, pure wind . . .

Golden Migration

I am going home.

Correction – 

I am embarking on my yearly migration

to my other home,

the home I abandoned

when restless and young,

in search for opportunity, I thought,

in search for freedom, I thought,

in search for a yearning inside

that I couldn’t ever quench – 

some sort of a static noise,

an encoded message 

possibly from the beyond,

I hear constantly

yet I don’t quite understand,

but that nevertheless drives me forward 

with urgency,

as if I need to go and seek something

of utmost importance. 

I found nothing – 

nothing at all, other than hurt:

the hurt of leaving and coming,

the hurt of misunderstandings, 

the hurt of surviving, really.

Correction – 

I found many beautiful little things

peppered in my way – 

a warm breeze, 

a flower in bloom, 

a whisper of love . . .

And in between migrating lands,

striving to fit two universes 

in one soul,

I got lost in entanglements of being 

and stumbled on my own shadows.

Correction – 

I want to correct my line of thought:

this time, I am truly going home – 

the home within,

the home that I am building

from my blood, sweat, and tears,

filled with beauty and love.

This time I am going home.

Cleopatra Sorina Iliescu, from Transylvania, Romania, lives in Atlanta with her two sons. She is the author of four poetry collections and holds a doctorate in education. In her series "In Golden Light," she weaves tender reflections on beauty, love, and loss—each poem unfolding the soul’s quiet mysteries.  

How My Father Decides He Wants a Green Burial

blight sickens

the flowering dogwood 

on whose silver gray branches 

my father watches birds 

from his death bed

gazing through the glass 

speaking to sparrows

in silent psalms in a tongue

only those with wings

could hear

he calls these creatures angels 

with claws

in morning shadows

the ghost 

of the dogwood’s last spring 

paints memories of heartwood 

on the ground

where the woundwort grows

where the earth 

is already beginning 

to break open

letting my father’s clawed angels

nest in worm-rich dirt 

feathered 

with birch bark and pinestraw

finding a haven

my father calls his next home 

when he dies I hear 

sparrows speak 

with the voice of my father

in flower 

in woundwort and weeds

Glory the Mourning with Morning: the Love Song of Mud 

glory the morning

who halos the holly

holy the vining

the twining

the rising to flower 

facing the sun

glory the offering 

of prayers of perfume

that come with the dying

of one faded flower

her sapphire trumpet

dropping to dirt

glory the ground

catching the fallen

love-struck 

by the blue blossom 

passing 

to root in the rich 

underall 

glory the earth 

in mourning

turning the fallen 

to feed 

new shoots of holly

in mud wet with worms,

in a bed deep-seeded 

with holy and hope

birthing the greens

from the blues 

How a 300-Year-Old Live Oak Saved My Life

on the edge 

of the Cooper River

by the brackish blue lagoon 

I creep into your wound

into the hollow 

where once you wore flesh

until god’s good lightening 

ripped you to open

to haven a heaven carved 

with stars and the scars of time

hiding in the heart of your hollow

I feel the pull of your roots 

how your dirt carries my feet 

your branches cradle my back 

your core seeds me to fruit

whispering the wounds 

of your womb I nest 

soothed by the bark of your tongue

brushing the moss in my hair

smelling of rain and wild onions

the grain of you in me

then I see the teeth coming 

claws nearing as a snort then a hiss

alligator breath razors the air 

death at the cup of my cave

sky splinters when thunder claps 

as a bough of you crashes 

hurled down at the predator’s head

he flees 

leaving me held wholly 

in the sweet safe of your shade

branching into your arms

my limbs grow leaves and lichen

acorns fall from my lips 

Lamentation Witnessed by Saplings 

on this desert day 

of holy fast

and unearned grief

I make the profound bow

head to knee

in memory of a boy

I never met

except 

in the Cooper River roots 

of this monastery

with its live oaks

and thorns of roses

except 

in the faith 

of hanging moss

branch-held

between the callings 

of earth and sky

where the boy knelt 

green-veiled 

bone-cancered

bearing thorns and roses 

in his hands

I witness him 

from the distance 

of the living

see him planting saplings

he called his children—

the live love oaks 

of the Cooper River

rubbed raw by deer

in dawn-dark communion

with the bark of saints

Mary Alice Dixon, twice-nominated for the Pushcart, is a poet with synesthesia who grows sunflowers in cow manure. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she reads poetry to the dying and leads grief writing workshops for hospice that include nature rituals, found poems, and gingerbread brownies. Find her at www.maryalicedixon.com.

Roots

Of all of the concepts of progress,
‘going back to your roots’

is most confusing.

Where did you go, so digressed?
Not realising those new green shoots

are growth from your own roots’ choosing.

How many rings in the tree
show years of poor growth?

In those years was so little seen,

that the leaves and roots forgot
that they are one tree, both? 

Dan Mellor has travelled the world through war and through peace. He has found himself, lost himself, and found himself once more. Through pain and suffering, he has been blessed with awareness of himself
and the world around him, and now he would like to share.

Asclepias

                                                    coffin shaped

                                  in-utero resurrection

                Lazarus       Jesus        Krishna

Osiris of the irrigation ditch

seeds spill out            as tiny specks of light flotsam

tangled        in the remnants of constellations 

of the northern hemisphere

the proto-gods         never came into existence

speaking every green thing           into being

even this small flake of a seed tethered 

with white filament       made to expatriate 

themselves        from home territory 

trusting the feminine divine         guidance 

placement among         fertile soil  

Justin Evans was born and raised in Utah. He served in the army and then graduated from Southern Utah University and later the University of Nevada, Reno. He lives in rural Nevada with his wife and sons, where he teaches at the local high school. Justin’s seventh full-length book of poetry, Cenotaph, was released in March of 2024 from Kelsay Books. His poems have recently appeared in weber: The Contemporary West, The Meadow, Wild Roof, and Collateral. Justin has received two Artist Fellowship Grants from the State of Nevada.  

Et in Arcadia Ego

Silken touch that tantalized, then fades.
Lilac wine flows effervescent in stream;
In Arcadia there lays what yet remains.

Desolate desire fanned into flames,
Downy embrace, promise of sweetest dream,
Silken touch that tantalized, then fades.

My proud chest, pierced, bears passion’s stain,
Burning desire, once snuffed, softly steams;
In Arcadia there lays what yet remains.

Hollow hunt for thread tattered and frayed.
A siren’s call, scorned by silent scream,
Silken touch that tantalized, then fades.

Dewy hills unearthed by lilting haze,

Lambs silently graze in the milky gleam;
In Arcadia there lays what yet remains.

She silently weeps with quivering gaze.
An empty tomb reveals a stitched seam.
Silken touch that tantalized, then fades.
In Arcadia there lays what yet remains.

Chadwick Rowland is a Catholic writer and attorney based in Washington, D.C. A recent convert, he writes at the intersection of longing, memory, and grace. His poetry is shaped by pilgrimage, silence, and surrender. *Et in Arcadia Ego* is his first published poem. 

carapace 

seventy-five years

painstaking work

chipping

heart shards first,

delicate tappings

release

the tender 

inside

one hard thwack

and card-house

beliefs collapse

falling away

most painful

realigning a love

far too limited—

not personal at all

something dies

in demolishing

but as promised,

reborn in the making

be freedom 

transparent chrysalis

reveals wing colors inside

do you hear

your casing split, feel

the seep of fresh air?

pump your wings

break out     hang

in sunshine to dry

you were born 

for this

now 

fly

Amrita Skye Blaine develops themes of aging, disability, and awakening. She received a PocketMFA in poetry in 2024. She has published a memoir, a three-novel trilogy, and has been published in nineteen anthologies including twelve poetry anthologies. Two poetry collections, every riven thing and strange grace, were published this spring.