Yehoshua November: Notes on Marriage
It was dusk, their home brightly lit.
Through the window,
I glimpsed the gray-haired man lifting his wife
into a dance.
Floyd Collins: The Eternal Pearl
David Rigsbee’s version of Dante’s Paradiso captures memorably the dulce stil nuovo (“sweet new style”) adopted by thirteenth century Italian poets from the troubadours of Provence.
Lisa Zimmerman: Three Self-Portraits
In the first self-portrait you’ll see me perplexed, holding a painted egg in my hand, sage green with a tumble of pink roses and a yellow bird floating. The egg … Continue reading
Brett Wilkins: As Hawks Urge Biden to Bomb Iran, Barbara Lee Says Reject Push for Wider War
“The path forward to peace and security throughout the region is dependent on a cessation of hostilities in Gaza.”
Martha Silano: I’m Not So Good at Corpse Pose
We’ve just woken from the dead, having been in deep rest,
when she rouses us with a clanging bell
Larry Levis: Childhood Ideogram
Where did he go, that autumn, when he chose
The chaste, faint ideogram of ash, & I had
To leave him there, white bones in a puzzle
By a plum tree, the sun rising over
The Sierras?
Mosab Abu Toha: my grandfather and home
my grandfather used to count the days for return with his fingers
he then used stones to count
not enough
he used the clouds birds people
Yehuda Amichai: The Place Where We Are Right
From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
Baron Wormser: Agony
The agony I feel about the events in Israel, an agony shared by millions around the planet, many of whom may never have entered a synagogue, is very real. I wake up at night and lie there, held fast by grief, impotence, anger, and despair.
A Teacher in NYC Tells the Children, “Look for the Helpers”
We all must demand a ceasefire now. Our witnessing and demanding change is how we can all be helpers for all children.
Yehoshua November: Driving Back to College in a Storm
And as I entered the onramp and the highway curved,
I realized I’d forgotten the wayfarer’s prayer.
Sara Teasdale: There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white
Gary Fincke: Scattering
From six to ten pounds, our cremains
Will weigh, the visible fragments
White or gray, the largest pieces
Ground to sand-size for discretion
And the ease of our scattering.
Lisa Zimmerman: Loft
She returns as a red-winged blackbird or maybe
all three blackbirds swinging now on the feeder
