Articles

Nomadic art in Mongolia naturally tends toward the spiritual, toward nature and one’s connection with it. Where some painters might want to incorporate shamanistic elements, these evangelical artists say the country’s Christian roots provide more than enough connection to God.

There will be thousands of warm nights

like this one, millions of the beetles, this whole darkened face
of earth erupting in brief constellations.

Praise the mockingbird,

unashamed that he is alone, praise the beetle,
the hornet, all night’s shy & vicious ornaments . . .

when I was young, his voice a low path through nightmare,
reading so that I wouldn’t dream of dying . . .

I read of a man a thousand miles south who heard a large crowd passing by.
He laid down his shears on his father’s land and joined the northbound caravan.

Sometimes, to comfort myself, I think of myself as a city, not a woman, but a city that can be rebuilt again.

If there is
a God, is there such a thing

as holy regret for what he’s made?

This is terror
and this must be how it happens—how need

alchemizes into belief.

not in weakness, but in tender
resolution to give way, be broken. . .

The kettle begins to sing
the one note of its one song.
The day becomes itself beyond
the glass of the kitchen window.