The Journey
-Mary Oliver
From Dream Work

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with ( Read more... )

Catechism for a witch’s child
by J.L. Stanley

When they ask to see
your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with
veins
on the underside of a bird’s wing
tell them you believe
in giant
sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so
frozen
stars crack open spilling streams of molten ice to earth
and tell
them ( Read more... )

There is a land -

a Motherland of vast
imaginative spaces and absolute
belonging her open heart a deep well
where all draw and drink
freely and fully the waters of life,

where we meet unknown
immediately recognized neighbors
share the water wander together
through imaginative spaces with
paths of potential to our
transformed tomorrow today

yes ( Read more... )

Nine Spice Mix
-Zeina Azzam

This spice mix is featured in many of the dishes in this book, lending them a uniquely Palestinian flavor.
-Reem Kassis, The Palestinian Table

First they tango on my tongue,
nimble couples careening,
then together
form an Arab-style line dance
stepping, stomping, swaying.

West Indies allspice dazzles,
berries tangling ( Read more... )

Sunday
-Cecily Parks

So this is Sunday evening
under the live oak behind the kitchen
where the Rose of Sharon
spills purple tea onto the grass,
the yellow bells sound yellow alarms
from tall stalks, and the sunflowers peep
over the fence into the street
where car tires lap at the pavement
and walkers and joggers and dogs and strollers
pass. Our ( Read more... )

Mr. Chairman Takes His Leave
-Rosemary Catacalos
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles.
-Walt Whitman

en memoria William Rashall Sinkin, 1913-2014

Whitman, you once told me, is democracy on the page, messy
and imperfect as we are in real life, which gave you hope

that we would one day make real life true democracy, ripe blossom,
pollen ( Read more... )

The Dark Night (XVIII)
-May Sinclair

Our love is woven
Of a thousand strands-
The cool fragrance of the first lilac
At morning,
The first dew on the grass,
The smell of wild mint in the wood,
The pungent and earthy smell of ground ivy crushed under our feet;
Songs of birds, songs of great poets;
The leaping of the red squirrel in the tree,
The ( Read more... )

pity this busy monster, manunkind
-e. e. cummings

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
     ( Read more... )

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