Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Week One
She is fine like a ringlet of fiddlehead fern
before it unfurls in the summer forest
Gary Fincke: The Doctrine of Signatures
my mother’s heart
Winding down while I thought of petals
Red and sugared as a lover’s gift
Darnell Arnoult: Widowhood & New Life
Peer passed vibrant stalks of rain. Think of his absent face
now uncaught by earth, light among stars. The man
is now stardust. His voice like the riddle of dreams.
Larry Levis: Family Romance
Abstaining clouds that passed, & kept
Their own counsel, we
Were different, we kept our own counsel.
Sophie Cabot Black: As to Why We Will Not Stop (Making the Hats)
We have come to know the truth
As no longer true— the old ways do not work
Against the new.
Mosab Abu Toha: Shrapnel Looking for Laughter
Shrapnel flies in the dark,
looks for the family’s peals of
laughter hiding behind piles of disfigured
walls and bleeding picture frames.
Alfred Corn: Instagram posts of Dr. Ali Tahrawi (second gathering)
We are dying in the longest nightmare in the history of humanity, with the most disgusting and immoral generation in human existence, witnessing the most human abusing and destructive period.
Arlene Weiner: Ghazal
When parting or meeting we wish each other peace.
We show with every greeting that we are lovers of peace.
Abriel Louise Young: Calling on Friends Across the Veil to Help Us Change History
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? Have you succeeded in changing yourself to wine? If so, please report back.
Robert Okaji: Dream Score
I empty my mother’s ashtray of its treasures—
various picks, the broken watch, a mandolin bridge,
that lock of my wife’s hair—then peer through the amber
glass at a distorted day. What looks back at me?
William Wenthe: Prophecy
In the predawn of Monday, I woke, dream-heavy
with a feeling of fate—like memory, but more
like remembering forward
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Acceptance
Today grief is a long steady rain
Adam Bittleston: September
Into the ripening
Of earth’s great gifts
The mists of autumn
Begin to be woven.
Vanessa Chakour: My Innate Connection to Stolen Land
When people are distanced from land, they lose the intimate knowledge necessary to be effective stewards.
