Welcome

Lost

for over an hour
on these mountain roads

(Where are the signs?
There should be more signs.)

An oak leaf skips
across macadam. Sudden
shadow-thing, it tumbles
for a second in the headlights,
blown dark to dark.

Pleiades above,
Jupiter so bright

The light rings out

Leaf. Eye. Star.

Small things. 

Found

A lone black mullein stalk in a snow field.

Dipped in tallow it becomes a torch.

The past, an illusion. And yet here it is, all around:

                                                                     shadows of standing stones.

I close my eyes. Leftover oak leaves rustle.

When I open my eyes, white pines have risen from the earth,

                                                                                 surround me. 

The Immense Night

          ~after Rainer Maria Rilke

1.

Who sits by the window, waiting for something to appear?
Waiting for a new, sudden star, from nebulae gas, from
night’s hands, pressing shadows into new forms?

2.

Who watches headlights of someone else’s family car, back
from Midnight Mass? Lights in a window. Figures in motion.
Who scans the street for Christmas lights that are still on?

3.

Moonlight on concrete reveals a stray cat hunting small
shadows. Human touch, food, a vague memory, a grey
light that occasionally travels the spine, towards the heart.

4.

Who slips down dark stairs, out the door, cold air on cool
skin, hears a rustling, a distant rummaging of hands or
claws? Who hears the sudden silence?

5.

Who is it that stands in the dark street, still skin against still
night, at the center, feeling other still points out there, all at
the center, as the immense night steps inside each one.

6.

Who is it stunned by the still weight of their bare feet pressed
in cold grass, pressure of a still hand against cold dogwood
bark, the cold bark pressing back?

7.

Who is it breathing inside roots slow-moving inside shadow, soil,
under dark houses, wrapping distant train wheels, clouds passing
across the moon, nebulae gas finding other parts of itself, fusing?

Christien Gholson is the author of several books of poetry, including Absence: Presence (Shanti Arts), and All the Beautiful Dead (Bitter Oleander); along with a novel, A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind (Parthian). Christien recently received a Pushcart prize and lives in Oregon, working as a somatically-oriented mental health counselor. 

The Sparrow and the Eagle

I don’t know much about life

said the Sparrow to the Eagle

I simply haven’t had the time

Time? replied the Eagle

What’s time got to do with it?

I have lived many a winter, and it only thaught me what I already knew;

Winter is cold and then comes summer and makes you forget

This I already knew from when my mother carried me through the seasons 

protected the egg in which I lay 

feathers upon feathers, warmth upon my shell

All I have ever know was already there 

in the motherly feathers

You have feathers, don’t you, little Sparrow?

The Sparrow silently agreed

Then you know all there ever is to know

You carry the wisdom of a thousand lives lived in your hairs

All you have to do is take flight

Morgentåka

Morgentåka gir sakte motvillig

slipp på sin kjære

Skogkledde åser

De møtes i skumring og gråvær

duggdråper på barnnåler

slør over kroner

Sånn elsker de hverandre

mykt og evig

tilbakevendende

Isbre

The stars sometimes appear in the city, I tilt my head back to sniff them

They say it’s autumn and that I should wrap up my heart but keep my eyes open 

I do as they say and pick a rowan branch 

put it in my grandma's vase so it can die on my bedside table 

After autumn comes winter, with fresh snow 

Upon shrinking glaciers, I promise I will come home soon

And you will stand there, firm in all our change, and greet me

Sara Backer sees herself as a "Jordbarn," an "Earthchild," as she feels a deep connection to the natural world. She tries to live close to what is true and earthly, to see through the eyes of the more-than-human, to speak from the soil. Her body is currently placed in Oslo in very urban surroundings, where she is always searching for the bigger connected life in the manmade city. Her heart and soul constantly long for wilderness and adventures with her camper van Sirius.

Rooms

I drop into the paint that colours me. I am the artist and the model. There is a stillness that

fills the space. Light and shadow find ways to dissolve the corners of the room. The world

outside is suspended, the sound of the street below caught in engines and hoots of scooters,

morning hellos and talk of the weather. I am memory, I am feeling. I am breath on the light

breeze. I am missing, a letting go, a putting down. The quiet joy of utter insignificance in the

silence of the room where it is no longer important to find myself. Where even the undigested

past and the hyper vigilance for an unknown future find their happy place on the cushion. A

feeling of a re-conditioning, a transforming of the energy is allowed to pause and check in,

listening to the multitudes.

...

I am the blue in the Sussex sky, in the chimney outline, in the smudged cloud in the distance. 

I am windless, barely moving. The stillness of the sunned wall, the light it brings. In places

high up voices are raised. Recriminations, nerves torched, melted from arrogance and over

reach. Back here, in the quiet, the bus becomes the noise of people, passing by going

somewhere. I sit and ponder the ever-widening presence in a warm embrace, grateful for a

different possibility: we only have one moment at a time. We show up for the future that

waits. And still there are no expectations that long after the first stones are laid, we will be

there on opening day.

Matobo Hills

Dropping into the body is not all that easy.

Here, all the squelchy messiness,

the uptightness, often snagged.

Here, we run into the future and

the past’s brick wall.

I want to be on the road that travels

into the Matobo Hills, that narrows

into the tarmac strip,

to find a place to be

present.

To sit with the boulders, unmoved forever,

only weathered. Trees resting in the sun,

listening, curious.

A place where we can ride discomfort,

finding balance, like the granite rocks squatting,

and ever so exquisitely be at ease.

Africa features strongly in Richard Frame's search for awareness and the beauty of the south coast of

England, where he lives with his wife, Janet, who does some of the heavy lifting. He believes you

don’t know what you feel until you dig around.

How can you miss something

you never even had?

Miss someone

you never even knew?

Yet that missing,

that longing,

is more real to you

than reality itself.

You try to be grateful,

to be glass half full,

but the empty is ever-present,

inescapable.

All you’ve ever wanted

is a sense of belonging.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell you

that belonging

IS

to be longing?

So the thing you’ve always wanted

has been with you all this time.

And yet that’s no consolation.

The surface where the silken water

meets the life-giving air above it --

that is the sweet spot.

Two elements that can only touch,

but never be one,

except in those rare instances,

when the air swells with moisture

transforming into droplets

falling into the ocean,

finally becoming one.

Or when the water overheats under the sun

transforming into vapor

rising through the sky,

finally becoming one.

Or when my heart swells with longing

transforming into Love,

surrendering to You,

finally becoming One.

Yes, that is the sweet spot.

Being aware of both the lack and the luster,

but embracing life anyway,

all for those rare glimpses of your beloved,

those magical moments you both merge.

The Ultimate High

Once I experienced the Ultimate High,

my life couldn’t possibly hold the same lure.

I could return to a flavorless existence,

or I could keep coming back for more.

Now, prayer is no longer a chore,

but a love letter in motion,

Your remembrance is never forced,

but a daydream to get lost in.

I want every book I read,

every movie I view,

every conversation I have

to revolve around You.

Surrounded by other lovers,

I gaze deeply into their eyes,

looking for my reflection,

till the early hours of sunrise,

talking about sacred whispers,

transcendent states, lifted veils,

facing our inner demons,

enduring our personal travails.

All else pales in comparison.

One taste of You is so sweet,

so divinely succulent,

one bite and I feel complete.

Still,

I keep coming back for more.

What tasteless mire

was I eating before?

Your Compassion

Bathing in a glistening pool of Your compassion,

I stretch my body taut,

floating on a current of utter bliss,

happy to let go of all control,

relieved to hand over the reins,

skimming around rocks,

being led by waves and wind,

falling over a precipice,

only to have You catch me.

I’d been living like a blind man

struggling behind a steering wheel,

when all I really desired

was to let go,

submit,

to You.

My control was an illusion,

unhappiness, an illusion,

separation from You, an illusion.

Lift up the curtain between our worlds

so that we may finally be One.

And if you must make me wait then

turn me into a mad and gushing sea,

or the spiraling winds of a tornado,

a terrifying eruption of sizzling lava,

or a quaking deep within Mother Earth.

Let me wreak my havoc on this world,

with uncontrolled abandon.

Or else,

bathe me in the glistening pools of Your Compassion,

where time will not stalk me,

pain is a figment of the imagination,

and pleasure awaits at every turn,

the pleasure that I am on my way,

hungry for a taste of,

aching to reunite with,

finally ready to give in to,

You.

Nida Elley is a writer and teacher who has lived in New York, Austin, London, and Lahore. Her writing can be found on her blog Lovelorn (http://lovelorn.me); in the anthologies Austenistan and Words By; and in the literary journals Herstry and Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts. 

INT. FMRI SCANNER

Anya’s POV: she slides back into the fMRI scanner, and is barraged by

abrasive SCANNER SOUNDS: JACKHAMMERING, CLICKING, BEEPING.

As the SOUND SUBSIDES - Anya's POV: surrounded by darkness, stillness,

SILENCE. Her SHALLOW BREATH indicates her anxiety.

TENZIN (V.O.)

(through her headphones)

Let's begin with the breath. We'll inhale

slowly to the count of 4, hold for 4, and

exhale for 6.

(beat)

Inhale...two...three...four.

Hold...two...three...four.

Exhale...two...three...four...five...six.

Continue counting on your own.

Inhale...Hold...Exhale...Inhale...

Hold...Exhale...

We hear Anya's DEEP BREATHS and HEARTBEAT throughout, and her INNER

VOICE COUNTING. By the end, her HEARTBEAT has slowed considerably.

TENZIN (V.O.)

Good. Now, imagine a blue lotus flower.

After a moment, a faint blue lotus appears in the center of Anya's

otherwise dark field of vision.

TENZIN (V.O.)

As you inhale, allow the lotus to become

bigger and brighter. More vivid.

Anya INHALES and the lotus responds accordingly.

TENZIN (V.O.)

As you exhale, the lotus becomes fainter,

smaller.

Anya EXHALES and the lotus shrinks and fades.

TENZIN (V.O.)

Continue on your own, keeping your

awareness on the lotus growing and fading

as you breathe in and out.

Anya continues practicing, focusing on her BREATH and the lotus image.

TENZIN (V.O.)

Good. Now. Maintain the vividness of the

lotus while breathing normally. Concentrate

on it as you enter sleep. Remain aware,

remain lucid as you enter the dream state

with the lotus in the center of your

attention.

Anya's attention remains fixed on the lotus, holding its brightness.

Soon, as her BREATH SLOWS indicating she's falling asleep, the lotus

flickers, reflecting her wavering attention. Then it dissolves

entirely into the darkness.

INT. LIMINAL SPACE - DREAM - CONTINUOUS

EXPANSIVE, CAVERNOUS SOUNDSCAPE THAT MORPHS INTO LOW RUMBLING.

Anya's POV: looking down at the scab on her arm, almost completely

healed. Only the center remains soft and squishy. She presses the scab

like it's a button. This reopens the wound. Blood oozes happily.

CLOSE UP on the blood as light bounces off the shiny red surface, like

sunlight reflecting off a body of water. PUSH IN until the wound fills

the frame in CU. Anya's POV enters the wound directly.

The blood morphs into a wavering purple wall, surrounding us,

confronting us. Everything gets very quiet.

A brightness starts to illuminate the purple, bright light pushing

through the wall of color, as if from the other side.

The bright light begins to perforate the purple wall, until it becomes

a purple web, surrounding and containing the bright white light. The

branches of the purple web are translucent and veiny. The whole thing

PULSES and BEATS (the first sound in a while). Her heart.

The brightness of the image peaks and begins to fade, along with the

INTENSITY OF THE HEART BEATS. The vision becomes a few shades dimmer.

JOHANNA (V.O.)

The center is the last to heal.

Saelyx Finna is a dream-centric filmmaker and writer based in Akron, Ohio. She is currently developing UNDER THE DREAM, a work of somatic cinema about the multiverse of our dreaming minds.  

Meditation

In every mindful breath
a little wakeful death.

A gateway to the place
where time turns into space.

An opening to love
that pours in from above

and touches us below.
A rhythmic, steady flow

of taking as we give.
It’s how we learn to live.

Standing

When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. — Luke 21:28

empty
yet unbowed
not defiant
not proud

just saving
a space
for glory
to replace

when time
shall fly
all things die

this space
will live
the life
I give

Be brave as a child

be brave as a child
coming to earth
bearing the risk
of uncertain birth

making of pain
a passageway
of blood and tears
a place to stay

not knowing where
this way will lead
not knowing how
hunger will feed

yet trusting in all
that has been and will be
and opening eyes
of tomorrow to see

Lory Widmer Hess lives with her family in Switzerland, where she enjoys hiking in the mountains and tries not to eat too much cheese. She is the author of When Fragments Make a Whole: A Personal Journey Through Healing Stories in the Bible (Floris, 2024). Visit her website at enterenchanted.com. 

Four Memories

Within the shell,

    Slate-gray sky inside,

          the skull and its mollusk.

       Here is mother of pearl,

         her small possessions,

           four moments of her song:

             Sediments worn-down, warm brown,

          like pebbles dropped from the blue

            cupped in cold hand.

                Bring back pink memory to white palms.

Warm breath fills out the land.

A Whining:

gnats tangle the air out of wind-swipe,

    leaning reeds

      wooden neck in swan’s curve,

         box, bridge, and strings—

            alloys of orchestration:

     feeding ducks, silent oboe

       no brass, no shot,

    no sound from the reed, —

      still as a stork’s one leg.

A Chevron on the Potomac:

glimpsed from Key Bridge,

  two ragged lines move toward the banks,

    an arrow and the sculls’ progress,

       river graph,

sparse profile,

    jagged.

       Crash and boom!

cavorting animals in market jargon,

    breathing fumes from idling engines.

A tongue beating breath:

tooth and palate wet, —

  river’s texture on dry flat rocks,

    slate-grey heron from the sky

      lands with blue wing fold,

a rustle, sound of faint whistle,

     flight of her song.

Still

At Harper’s Ferry,

 just up the towpath from Key Bridge,

     and the Heron’s rock:

         a flood and the Civil War.

     Miles back from the river’s mouth,

        the Union, two streams,

          in the park.

Tourists breathe from the slave’s gasp,

   released in pictures: 

     John Brown, his men, their weapons.

Palace of Memory

Palace of memory

Secluded in its own time,

Instantaneous.

Felt together from above by

Queen Candelabra

Always watered with fantasy

She ties the skies in rainbows.

Prince Osmosis guards the gates at reception,

Condensing from unrefined metals,

Parts of recollection,

Where scattered findings

Begin a common existence.

The hotel of affections and afflictions,

The key to each room

Is wired to an absence

From the present,

Into various fictions which picture,

Mammalian warmth,

Boiling dreams in horrifying broth,

A random street scene,

Sexually saturated rags of a past affair,

Prickly pear grinds the groin into dry forgetting and

Mirages in desert’s sunset beauty.

Night horse, mare’s main

Blows into the awakening breeze

Sweat cantering in the sheets.

Concatenation of griefs falls

Though the inner atmosphere

Peeling gold leaf

Off the fruit of

A monarch’s recreation

Floating through shade

With its own illumination.

Stuffed into the haze

obscuring a sunlit room,

In the Place of memory.

Tony Bates grew up in different parts of the world following his father’s postings in the Foreign Service. Now living in Alexandria, Virginia, he is a retired government bureaucrat, house husband, part time writer, gardener, and community volunteer. He is both a self-styled “Citizen of Nowhere” and a concerned citizen of this remarkable country.  

The Family Archipelago

It was a tiny clue: the text
without a heart attached.

Reading it I recall
my long study and all I’ve gleaned:
it’s wise to wean yourself from family dramas --
when tempers flare and smoldering embers rise.
I’ve stopped the quest to keep everything swell.
I’ve broken this part of my mother’s spell.

And now the lightning strikes
and I see family
strangers lit
in postures of attack
then
darkness again.

I thought I was the odd one
in a family all united
minus me.
But lightning reveals
we are all scattered
in space, time, and affection.
A family archipelago.

Mom always sent hearts
but now only the cryptic
polite text.
That is the clue
to see through
to her rage.

So bitter she’ll go alone
to the hospital.
She won’t take help.
So brittle now my words bounce back
into her stream of projections
on the screen of me.

I can only wonder what went wrong
since the story started long decades --
centuries -- ago when a mother and father
grew mute instead of risking the

necessary fight. They pretended

that everything was alright

until they couldn’t rouse

or even know their soul

hidden under layers of deceit. 

You can’t cheat what the core knows but 

I wanted to believe the happy hearts.

But as the lightning strikes I see 

a crime scene -- outlines of corpses.

Parts of us die each time we lie

and invert our hurt 

to play the role of serene and whole.

We once talked face to face, 

then on the phone.

Now texting is preferred. 

Safer that way.

Better to avoid the pain and besides 

emojis can help us feign affection. 

But truth always seeps through. 

It was a tiny clue

to get the text 

without the heart.

Imagine a Morning with Crayons  

Imagine dreaming until lunch

using sketch pad, journal, or empty space 

for dancing the body and the soul.

Imagine sacred silence until noon.

No need to justify the worth of hours spent 

surveying inner landscapes. 

Imagine holding firm to this rare realm

beyond market forces.

Where Imagination has a turn 

to tell its truth. 

A green zombie emerges 

in a room of pianos?

This crayon threshold opens and

my spirit romps glee filled 

into dreamland. 

Free now

from forcing 

all forms into sales.

Still -- I am hypnotized

and this simple but rare magic 

cannot yet fight my need for

striving always

striving to prove value 

through revenue. 

Even now I struggle to give myself this time.

And my Muse cries 

as Art gives way to schemes of merchandise 

or fantasies of poems fetching cash. 

(My family thinks I’m crazy. Or lazy.

I’ll show them yet. If I could just win a major award 

or hear an audience roar……)

Enough wasting of this hour. 

Why fiddle with words that give no currency or fame?

Why scribble like a child? 

These games produce nothing

to feed on in this tough world. 

Yet.

Still.

Still

I look at my green zombie

so filled with a longing I deny. 

She’s much more real than 

the slick suit-ed specialist 

I wear to work.

My green crayon reveals.

She shows how 

an unseen world heals.

How in our quiet reveries we 

re-member our true selves. 

And in a flash I see how 

with words or paint or feet 

our child-like efforts can convert 

our mythic hurt. 

And make our lives 

into a sweet song 

for the earth.

Laura Lewis-Barr was a grad student in clinical psychology but switched majors and earned her MA in theatre. Laura is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker. When not writing poetry, Laura creates scrappy stop-motion shorts in her basement in Chicago. They can be viewed at
https://psychescinema.com/. 

After Hearing Thunder

After hearing thunder, God’s voice,
we are graced in the sweet glory of these:

wildflower fields, gently breezed and fragrant-
the hand and presence of Christ,

green trees and fields, bough cooled shade
throughout the day and then golden,

the edge of an evening sunset,
his strength and hope

until supernatural light, the stars,
glimmer in kind ferocity

shining out in darkness as those of us
singing forth praise aflame in creation 

 Lines Written in Spring

Oh . . . the wonder of it, this robin’s song
a testament of rebirth all day long.

In measured notes and morning lighted eyes,
the world needs to know this under blossomed skies.

Cherry blossoms starlike in a winded glow
captured fragrances branched, swinging low.

Awesomeness to mark his trilling way
midst each zephyr drifting this bright day,

while somewhere in the fields of Spring’s long pen
the soul’s sail reigns nurtured again 

Lucia Haase is an award-winning and published poet who has been writing formal and free verse

poetry for thirty years as the direct result of a spiritual experience.  Many of her poems are inspired

by nature, human nature, and spirituality.

Maybe Grief is Like a Power Outage

Maybe grief is like a power outage. 

Sometimes with, sometimes without warning,

the CO2 detector lets out a wail 

just as the lights go down. 

Total darkness leaves me alone at the table, or 

with the washer halted mid-cycle,

or with one foot on the stairs. 

Where are my emergency supplies?

Where are the batteries, the candles? 

Is my phone charged and for how long? 

I look out the window to see if I'm alone in this. 

Is it just me or are the neighbors with me? 

How long, oh how long until the return of light? 

Maybe I just give up and go to bed, where if I can't sleep, 

at least I won't trip over the cat. 

I don't have the night vision of my cat, but I do notice

that with the slow movement of time

my eyes start to adjust to the dark, and I can see

just a little. 

There is an edge of light coming from somewhere.

Maybe grief is like that. 

Three Haikus

Haiku as Spring Moon

Pulling bulbs from thawing earth

Haiku is hard work

It's true what they say

Between dark and morning light

Is creative time

Too cold for water

My heart and I still feed the

cat who won't come in

A native of northeast Ohio, Virginia Douglas lives in a bungalow occasionally mistaken for a folk art museum. It's a charmed life. Charmed, that is, by the inspiration of books, travel souvenirs, unruly cats and gardens, and the blessing of family and friends.