Robinson Jeffers: Ocean
The gray whales are going south: I see their fountains
Rise from black sea: great dark bulks of hot blood
Plowing the deep cold sea to their trysting-place
James Crews: It’s Good to Be Here,
I say out loud, to give the words
the physical presence they deserve
in the warm bakery with us, this place
we’ve been coming for years now.
Sean Sexton: No cause to count on mercies of the Earth
Yet a heifer finds a hollow,
penumbra of shade where the cold
couldn’t reach. She forages there
a little while, prospers.
Christine Rhein: Poem for Lisel Mueller
I’ve turned toward dream again, endless steps,
sky without voice, as though the music of birds,
or my mother singing, never happened.
Rose Mary Boehm: The Matthew Passion
How I once cried with the crucified Christ,
how I suffered the agonized night of Gethsemane,
how I waved that palm leaf,
how I felt the betrayal of Judas
and the foreboding of the last supper.
Majid Naficy: The Persian New Year
When the Thirteenth Day comes
You’ll go with the flowing water
And speak to the sky and the earth
Of the beautiful moments of love.
Linda Parsons: The Other Side
To unlock my Akashic records, I speak my name three times to the psychic, echo the spell that flew Dorothy over the rainbow, farther still, home to sepia Kansas.
Ellen McGrath Smith: Plea to the Plutocrats During Holy Week
We will all be together, you will never avoid it,
in the air, the earth, and the ash.
Video: Israeli And Palestinian Mothers Walk Barefoot For Peace In Rome Streets
The activists demanded an end to violence, emphasizing that mothers everywhere want their children to live in dignity and safety.
James Crews: The Pond at Sunset
I forget I’ve already arrived
in the life I want, and that I am
still arriving at the same time.
Alison Hurwitz: Submerged
the story run across his skin, his mind a moving wheel
that cannot stop its circling, bearing down the road
with grackle wings, a story leafing past each turning
Al Ortolani: Prayer Boat
Each night I say a prayer of thanks
to some higher power, a thanks for
the chance to be alive as a thinking
being, for the family and friends
that surround me
Michael Simms: Trump’s Nightmare
Who is James Talarico, and why does the Trump administration fear him?
Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren
We sat on the porch swing in the fragrant dark
scented by roses and lilies, knowing we were
about to lose everything, but powerless to stop it.
