Quo Vadis?
By Poetry Issue 59
…when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and take you where you do not want to go. ————————————————–—John 21:18 The woman with the invisible stigmata sits day by day in the gelateria and wonders why no one else can see what she cannot, though she knows her…
Read MoreThe Cloak of the Saint
By Poetry Issue 62
1 The cloak of the saint was filled with roses The cloak of the saint rose above the city The cloak of the saint was thrown over the back of a chair it slowly filled with a human form it was filled with the sound of wind It floated down the mountainside sheep it passed…
Read MoreAt Land’s End
By Poetry Issue 61
Cape Breton Facing the east was the cliff dropping sixty feet to the sea: a rock- face frozen in the slow-motion act of falling. A shirred schist. A Parkinson’s of stone—sheer and delicate as a chiton carved by a Greek. Sweeping back from the cliff, a slope of steep green. Empty but for a spattering…
Read MoreMidrash
By Poetry Issue 69
And the heart of man is a green leaf: God twists its stem and it withers. ______________________________—Nikos Kazantzakis At first the hunger in his belly did not burn, nor did it lie at the bottom with the heaviness of stone. It was like iron hammered flat, like the dull edge of a knife pushed against…
Read MoreBlessing
By Poetry Issue 74
I know a woman who, when she hears wise words uttered, turns her palms upward. She’s as likely to place her hands on my shoulders, to comfort. None of it for show. Palms upward, she’s a basin. Palms downward, a wellspring, rain. May we be basin and well to each other. May we be rainlight…
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