I Said to God, “I’m Thinking of You”
By Poetry Issue 66
Nevertheless, the rain continued. In dark doorways and under loading docks men slept with cardboard and cold. I said, “My heart is full with praising your justice.” Still, the sniper drew in a long terrible breath—or so I understand. I said I was lonely for my old body and my body became older still. I…
Read MoreCommon Prayer
By Poetry Issue 66
Stirring among the pines. The sapling’s leaves like oval wings tremble. Between the whoofs of startled deer, echoing, an echoing clear creed of some unvanquished mystery— night-rising crows humbling their caws below the oaky whoo of the boreal owl. Below that, what? Threads of wood, a bed of pine, the needles strewn in love beside…
Read MoreFrom the Lines of Life: Guy Chase and the Art of the (Extra)Ordinary
By Essay Issue 72
Although preparation for this article began in 2008, by the time it was completed Guy Chase had begun to lose his fight with cancer. He approved a near-final draft a few months before slipping away in his sleep on August 18, 2011, at the age of fifty-six. I am for an art that grows…
Read MoreMonotheism
By Poetry Issue 72
As he raises my bookshelf, empty now, and therefore heavy with what I do not know, my friend the carpenter speaks so kindly of all the dark acolytes of one god who walk the streets of ground zero in fear, beneath the shadows and mistrust that pour down the highest places like waterfalls of dust.…
Read MoreSabbath
By Poetry Issue 71
———Then will I carry you within me for as long ———as I can: not a ———consolation but a promise, and not because ———I must: not as you ———carried me but to be your keeper, a place where ———you remain the one ———bearing life: not as a god or idol that I ———have made too small,…
Read MoreVarieties of Quiet
By Essay Issue 73
I HAVE TRIED to learn the language of Christianity but often feel that I have made no progress at all. I don’t mean that Christianity doesn’t seem to “work” for me, as if its veracity were measured by its specific utility in my own life. I understand that my understanding must be forged and reformed within…
Read MoreIrenology
By Poetry Issue 78
For the word is living and active …………—Hebrews 4:12 Irene, a girl’s name. Irenology. Studies in peace. How does peace circulate? Open in Ezra and paging to Nehemiah, ——–I contemplate exiles rebuilding temple walls. I thought, is this a form of peace studies? Confess our sins. Our inability to perform ——-a divinely ordained task by…
Read MoreThe Waltz of Descartes and Mohammed
By Poetry Issue 76
There is No God But God. I think Therefore I am. I am; There is Therefore No God. I think, “But God, But God….” I am, I…think. Is there No God Therefore? Therefore Good for No God Am I. There is, I think, “I.” Think There: For There is But God. I am No God,…
Read MoreBlessed Are Those Who Yearn
By Book Review Issue 78
Blessed Are Those Who Yearn New Poetry in Review The Glacier’s Wake by Katy Didden (Pleiades Press, 2013) God Loves You by Kathryn Maris (Seren Books UK, 2013) Incarnadine by Mary Szybist (Graywolf Press, 2013) AT THE END of Paradiso, Dante, after confessing his inability to describe the vision of Love he sees, nonetheless…
Read MorePère David Speaks of the Panda
By Short Story Issue 78
AND SO I CAME to Muping and discovered the panda. Yes, I discovered him! I had traveled far and wide through China by then, from the plains to the mountains, from the desert to the sea. I had discovered hundreds of new species of flora and fauna: the butterfly bush and blue corydalis, the small snow finch,…
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