Yehoshua November: Hearing Roy Orbison in a Mikvah in Salem, MA
To submerge beneath the water,
the mystics add,
is to return to the Divine womb,
the way the soul returns to the Heavens each night
as the body dozes.
Penny Rosenwasser: A Jewish American Says “Not in My Name!”
On my desktop is a photo of seven Palestinian babies at Al-Shifa Hospital, lying next to each other on a bed. Lacking fuel, nurses had moved 36 babies from their … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Blonde on Blonde
telling each other our secrets,
breathing in the sea salt air
and breathing it out again,
dedicating our lives to each other
Rebecca Gordon: The Hamster Wheel of War
On Ending Dreams of Revenge in Israel, Palestine, and Elsewhere
Naomi Shihab Nye: Jerusalem
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.
Tashi Nyima: Gratitude
With gratitude, I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, whose joyful exertion blesses my life each day.
Video: Dreamcatcher
As an elderly Yakama woman looks back on her life, the line between reality and fantasy are blurred.
Kim Stafford: Wren’s Nest in a Shed near Aurora
Three tiny eggs in thistledowncupped in a swirl of grass in the pocket of the tool beltI hung on the wall of the shedwhen it finally stood complete—will be three … Continue reading
Mike Vargo: The Holiday Rant
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve celebrate the three great indulgences of our culture: overeating, overspending, and getting overly intoxicated. The unifying theme is excess.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: The Rat Trinity
I loved the rats
of Bruges I watched from the dorm window,
how they slunk out
the courtyard sewer grill, slid along walls,
slipped down the cellar steps like whispers,
and vanished into gray.
Donna Hilbert: Credo
I believe in the Tuesdays
and Wednesdays of life,
the tuna sandwich lunches
and TV after dinner.
Michael Simms: Ishmael
I’m not prepared to measure grief
like grains of darkness
Margo Berdeshevsky: For Autumn, 2023
yet awake to the fallen
leaves—their many many
tiny burning
hands—
Tim Peeler: Two Poems
When you’re close enough,
Even chaos looks like order:
The falling star, the overturned
Cattle car, the psychotic mother’s
Meandering explanation.
