Robinson Jeffers: The Place for No Story
A herd of cows and the bull
Far distant, hardly apparent up the dark slope;
And the gray air haunted with hawks
Video: A Kind Favor
On the magical coast of Central California, a grandmother reflects on a life filled with art, love, and tragedy.
Luray Gross: Catching Sight
Take my hand. Let us walk together, even with war raging,
with the sea rising, with the oriole’s winter home
yielding to chainsaw and bulldozer.
With so many songs being left unsung,
let us sing.
Sean Sexton: Plea
An evening has passed, and a young cow is still
crying among the herd this morning like the widow
in the Bible who wouldn’t leave an ill-tempered
judge alone.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: What I Know of Love When Times Are Dark
And if you don’t
know how to pray,
then perhaps you are doing it right.
Todd Friedman: Two Poems
Israel, you have become like Joseph’s brothers
who abandoned him in an empty cistern
and then sat down to a feast.
Mary B. Moore: Gloria, Arbored
The foliage simmers or shivers,
airs itself out, and the round
leaf-scales, which join and branch,
make each stem a flat little tree:
a tree of trees.
Michael Simms: Sunstar
The mist that covers our mountain
Evaporates and becomes a feeling
That lasts all morning. You lift the spoon
From the sauce and feel the texture
Of the aroma.
Jack Gilbert: A Brief for the Defense
We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
Deborah DeNicola: Millennium Jubilee
We were called to attend the fake alien invasion. The subpoena arrived in a blue vellum envelope with a stamp of clouds and empty sky and a watermark hologram of a dove. They gave the date and time but Jim noticed the venue was missing.
Moudi Sbeity: Something Rather Than Nothing
What can be more holy than this?
The ground beneath our feet,
the stories we carry from one day to the next,
the fluency of rivers as a reminder of something
rather than nothing.
Wallace Stevens: Sunday Morning
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights
Ma Yongbo: Three poems translated from Chinese
The horse drawn cart hasn’t gone far, it will carry away
the love of the land, and one or two shy grasshoppers.
At this moment, her hanging sickle
reflects the white light of winter arising in the distance.
James Crews: Losing Heart | Poem and reflection
You might be
driving to work one stormy morning,
scowling at every car that passes you
when it happens again—that sudden
leap in the chest as you see the rain
