A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith
Katy Willis
Now is the winter of my discontent To be reformed, transfigured into spring? I cannot seem to hold to anything That by this sudden blossom is not rent. I leave a love behind, unfathomed still; I have a hope before me, waiting yet; And trapped so, where no boundaries are set, I find a faith, an unexpected will. [Read more...]
I. What woman could bind
Death’s bane to flesh,
What mother dare
Her God to mortal;
What womb would bear
That mortal fare?
II. The purging flame
Burns in the bush–
The fertile virgin
Child-bearing,
In consummation
Unconsuming. [Read more...]
William Daugherty
“Oh, William, look! How beautiful!” she said;
and, keen to help, I also turned my head
to see the objet d’art that she admired:
a handsome bronze our gallery acquired
from some estate—two lovers rapt in one
another’s gaze, mote-dazzled in the sun.
“Mary liked this stuff. I never did.”
He was tall but stooped. His right hand hid
his trembling left; a silver pompadour
gave him a courtly air. Her pert couture,
her simple pearls, her much too auburn hair
contrasted with her face, long etched by care. [Read more...]
A.R. Bossert
You lie through lines and falsely signal hope.
Mechanical imposter—she who spoke
Makes sweeter sounds than what comes through your holes.
Forgive me my accusatory tone—
See, I shall praise thee an angel dear
Who carries her sweet speech when we’re alone.
Then, eyelids closed, she whispers in my ear. [Read more...]
Joseph O’Brien
Forecasters generally consider a white Christmas to be an inch of snow on the ground or an inch falling that day.
—news item
But along the river bottoms, snow found no place,
When we went walking there
After life, abrupt, stillborn, fell apart.
Your flustered hands gently wrestled
With the chill in the folds of your overcoat.
Frightened doves, they could not bear to be held,
Holding to themselves
In a barren nest untouched by tenderness,
Yet wanting to fly from flesh to flesh. [Read more...]
J.B. Toner
The sun! A million bird-hymns split the skies,
His crimson halo sanctifies the peaks,
Flings green on grass and blue on babbling creeks,
The violets open dew-bespangled eyes,
The shadows spring away in swift surprise,
Bright clouds rush outwards, galleons white and sleek,
A merry day his golden beams bespeak,
And azure oriflammes proclaim his rise. [Read more...]
Gabriel Olearnik
No word was given me, no legend no ringing play, no tapestry of the coming time. I did not know my name and of all things there was only the lapping light, the sword and sharp sand beneath my feet. The light is red thread on the clock 4:48. Incomplete--an hour of wet salts and seven men murmuring. [Read more...]
On the Occasion of the 2,757th Birthday of the City of Rome
Apollo shines bright on her dappled stucco walls, Like a vast and blank and gold-spotted canvas Ripe with a possibility as multiform as the City (For there is only ever one City) In which it hangs like a vast inhabited museum exhibit.
Grace Andreacchi
Fresh snow on the fields
and all along the track
frost flowers blooming.
In the distance a single light
flickers and dies
Overhead the stars like golden fireflies
are winking in the forest of the night.
I have put on my corals and rubies
I have put on my robe of purest light
I have sewed my heart to the sleeve of my garment
Ich bin bereit.
R.S. Mitchell
Not rooted, as if cut and put for people,
an old tree stump waits in the creek,
a pedestal
for an office worker’s lunch break.
In miracles you may or not believe
but notice your face hovering over the water
and now perceive
the halo gliding under a strider,
how each foot-well puckers like a liquid lens. [Read more...]
