Gravity

There aren’t many problems
That can’t be solved 
By going out and sitting
Beneath a tree
While reality drops
On your head like an apple.
Perhaps nothing would happen,
But sometimes it takes a while
To understand
That there is something much larger,
Much more important
Than apples simply falling.


—Paul Causey

Skateboard Mishap

I thought he'd be all right on a skateboard. I was wrong.


 — Kim Mosley 

Three Views of Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma 1


Bodhidharma 2

Bodhidharma 3


—Bruce Linton, MFT, Ph.D. 

Tsunamis and Years

Tsunamis and years
refuse negotiations.
No change in habits.


— Ed Sancious

For just this moment

Touch is all that’s needed to be a you and me.
Everything is embrace of my lips that settle against your breast
quickening the pace of heartbeats,
signaling promise for more to come
in this sudden secret moment.
And though there is no length of time in “now”
your touch, for just this moment,
transforms closeness of flesh and bone and blood
into a magnitude of miracle,
into metaphor for love.
 
For us this moment is ceremony.
breathing ritual timeless mantras –
a present tense reverence
of sacred forces in resonance
that advocate or motivate
formula for attaining love.
 
Placed outside of time
our love becomes
contentment,
absent of ornament.
It stays itself.
Is what begins and follows.
 
No need nor time to master this conceit
as there’s nothing to articulate,
no squandering of syntax
no upending of cognition.
Faithful to this moment
we fuel the heart with passion
steer towards reckless romance
even without the crutch of metaphor
and treasure breathless recognition.
 
We, like time, unravel and speak:
"I you love,
love you I"


— Ed Sancious

Basho Prompt

These years have found a favor
in learning of Mystery.
Letting aging teach, despite opinion or desire,
that everything changes,
nothing fails to balance,
denial is never sufficient,
and fear is hollow
because the twins of birth and death are proof of equilibrium.
 
I’ve learned it best for me
to sit myself into stillness,
and end the search for treasures in life
as life itself IS the treasure.
 
I take comfort and delight
in naming the illumination of stars
long gone dark in night skies.
Treasuring each impulse to language Grace
I stand in rain
indistinguishable from the wet.


— Ed Sancious

While Sleeping, A Haiku

there must be sunrise
the darkness has gone away
magic while I sleep


—Paul Causey

Chemotherapy

Dear Tishawne: 
how is your head? 
Has your skin thinned 
soft, like my mother’s did, years ago? 
Has your hair fainted? 
Do you float through air as the dust and ashes do?
 
Do the dogs now shrink from your touch? 
My mother said they sniff out poison, 
the infinite repeating rot that clutches at the haunches. 
They wait for The Victory or The Death.
Until then, they will not let you pet them. 
 
Have you touched a fuzzy dew-dropped blade of grass ? 
Do you find it curled up grey within the hour?  
My mother hated flowers during her poisoning. 
Their velvet petals smelled of metal, 
their color always withered at chemo-laden finger’s touch.
My mother suffered her houseguest for 2 years. 
Eventually, it departed.  
The chemo posted too many ragged eviction notices 
fluttering a muttering,  “It’s not her time to die, she must suffer life a little more.”  
 
Are you hungry? 
I have warmed you some miso. 
When you expel the congregation and the choir and all the angels and saints in heaven, 
when you are finally empty, drink in the time, the miso of silence.
There is nothing to do, but rest and get better.

Listen: I have found the rope and knotted it.
Here, take it. It is very thick. 
I weave seaman’s knots from lightning and sea brine tears.
Here. 
Grasp. 
The fraying burns all tiny hands that grab; 
except for yours, I hope 
this rope will pull you out of dark.
 Please, take this rope and climb. 
Or sit a while and swing gentle.
I am patient.
I will see you shine again a different way than you shine now, today. 
 

—Emily Romano

Another Day of Practice

i walked out on 
the edge of the Bay
in the street behind me the
horrible breathing of
a leaf blower

I come, searching for
silence but
can’t escape what is

three little brown ground squirrels feeding
in the grass don’t seem bothered maybe
their tiny ears can only hear their munching on
the grasses

what is the prison I 
am trying to escape? Why can’t things be different?
Where is my silence?

my teacher is speaking...
participate in whatever you hear, whatever
thoughts and feelings that arise
whatever the perception of this
very moment
don’t hope for things to get better!
it is only in this moment that
anything is real…

eight cyclists ride by
a group of men on a bench are talking
one of them sneezes,
loudly


—Bruce Linton

Becoming

“a man feels the world with his work like a glove.” 
From Open and Closed Spaces by Tomas Trastromer

The sun shines through my window,
finds me sitting behind my desk
and ruffles work papers 
with tiny particles of dust, floating in the air,
because they are simply there.
Like me, they hang,
suspended on invisible fingers, only there 
when light touches the surface of a finite thing.
To be here, I must be seen.
I may be fully present, acutely here,
in my own skin, but if you cannot see me, hear me, 
feel, smell, or taste me, if you do not acknowledge me
in some way, I am not truly here.

So, when I become present in the moment,
I must also be mindful that without you,
I am nothing, but a part of the ever-present universe,
the Tao, the nothing and the every thing.
To be present means I must also receive you,
to accept you and acknowledge you,
for the sun shines on each of us,
makes us visible to the world.
To be present is to see, to understand, 
to hang in the air like tiny particles of dust
suspended by invisible fingers of light.


— Paul Causey

Untitled

words spoken out loud
spoken to the universe
poems become a prayer


— Paul Causey

Resemblance

My mother looks at me and sees only my father 
Our noses that settle the same way
Our lips curling into identical smiles 
Which I suspect now only looks like gritting teeth 
To a snarl
She sees likeness in our addictions 
The likeliness that I too never find satisfaction with just one 
My hard working nature distorted to hell bent 
I can not fault her hurt 
While my brain knows it’s misdirected 
My heart still fries in my chest as her glare peers instead through me 
How can I not hate my reflection 

My father looks at me and sees only my mother 
Delicate hands that move to create where she said crafty he heard manipulate 
Feels unease that at any moment I will be gone with the next spark of inspiration 
Call it impulsive 
Nothing to tether me here 

The flight home takes me each time to the pit of my stomach
Preparing to show up as the worst parts of two people 
The love from the other tainting what little they have to give me so each warm embrace instead feels ice cold 
Uncomfortable bones clashing like dead branches Morse code messaging me in the middle of the night 

The signal is received on this end and it reads “a battery two parts negative, never to work, with the audacity to even try for functional. There is no charge. There is no spark”.


— Harmony Hagadorn

The Hand of God

 

— Kim Mosley 

Waterfalls


from 

transfinite 

t r a n s c e n d e n t 
  s k i e s 


          t  r  a  n  s  l  u  c  e  n  t 

l  i g  h  t  

f
 a
   l
  l
    s 
     a
         s 
w
  a
   t
      e
      r
             f
               a
     l
     l
       s


— Ksenia Alessandra Petrova

When The Penny Drops

And still,
when the penny drops,
I’m startled to find
how little there is to know
about our quaint genesis of life,
about our birth-forged resolution in death,
about how little we think we need to know, 
engaged for days and weeks and months, 
intent on obfuscation,
assumed impervious with the distractions called youth.

As year after year after year
living our silkworm lives
aging continues a hunger for its due,
patient like a feral cat.
Wary that there is never enough.
Yet never never matters.

So questionably we only flirt 
with pivotal questions: 
like how am I to be seen?
Does water flowing, know it has depth and tides?
Who demands to know (and why) 
the degree of wet that makes water moist?

Now, unquestionably close to being inactive, 
we’re told (or maybe I’m finally learning):
Penetrate the doubt.
Take comfort that inquiry permits response, 
that response enriches inquiry.

and as these days to contemplate,
by default decrease,
I’m yearning for a legacy, 
a koan-bred presentiment  
that’s thankfully saying:
to be content, 
there is no need 
to ponder if trees consider 
what water means to fish.

And still, 
when all is said and done, 
there is only a grace of spaciousness,
always a fullness of intimacy.


— Ed Sancious

Reflection on my life as it is

How do I hold it all, my life 
Gently, tenderly, angrily, pityingly 
Knowing it hangs, like an ill assorted, loose fitted garment 
The weave and pattern 
Complex, changing, or running together 
Like a huge jigsaw puzzle Randomly tossed by life
Dense and dark in some places But always with light filtering through 
Put this way
I don’t even need to hold it
I don’t even have a big enough container 
Just my being present to each fragment of experience 
Allowing it to filter through my being 
Staying open to the fluency of shifts and changing interpretations 
Knowing clearly my time span is limitlessly limited 


—Jean Lopez

A Shared Path

Sometimes, if we share a path together,
we will come to know each other a little better.
Perhaps, if the path is difficult,
treacherous in its weavings,
it is enough to bring us together,
and maybe for a little while we can forget 
that our differences, our fears, separated us, kept us apart.
For a little while, we can be whole, secure, and at peace.

We all share this path called life.
Perhaps we are at different points along the trail,
but it is the same trail,
that, at once, can take us nowhere, 
or anywhere we need to go.


—Paul Causey

Faces of play.

    Caught on film, a tall and lean coyote and a short and chubby badger play hide and seek at the entrance to a tunnel built to safely take them, should they want to go, under a highway to the other side. The coyote jumps up and down, tempting the badger to come along. The badger teases the coyote, comes toward him, then back, tempted to stay. After a lot of back and forth — tempt, tease, tempt, tease — finally they go off into the dark of the tunnel together. I, the badger, am thinking, why bother? It’s so much easier to stay here, be alone.
    Not to have to hear that my friend is about to leave for a week in Cambria with her husband. Then, after a two-day camping trip along the ocean, two weeks in their second home in the Idyllwild mountains before flying to Europe for seven weeks — Italy, Spain, Portugal — from which she will begin her walk along the Camino de Santiago, when her husband will join her to celebrate, no matter how far she has been able to navigate the Camino. 
    How not to compare myself? How not to think that on September 15th, the day she returns (it is now July 27th), I will not have moved, still inside my thinking mind, traveling the same path over and over, wearing it down as I continue to ruminate over “where to live the rest of my life.” 
    Certainly a daunting task I have set for myself! How can I possibly know from here, from today, where Life will want to take me? Where Life will want us to be for our last ten … fifteen …twenty years. (In twenty years, I will be a hundred and three!)
    How can I know where Life will want us to be … tomorrow? 
    Let alone where I will have landed twenty minutes from now on this blank page — where my hand is moving across and back, across and back.
    How grateful I am to have this writing practice to remind me that all I can really know is now. The smile I can feel on my lips, new, not there before. The sound of this pen as it scratches across the page. The green tea at my side, its terra-cotta cup too hot to lift. Sure (am I sure?) that soon the cup will cool and I’ll be able to smell jasmine flowers, reminded that I have a tongue and cheeks with the power to taste, recognize the difference between jasmine tea and sencha. Hear the sounds of the plane overhead as they fade into the sounds of a passing car, the caw of a crow. The slight breeze as it tickles the wind chimes to sing outside my open door and I have ears to hear it. 
    I am traveling, too. 
    Laura is young. May I not envy her, her travels. Haven’t I had mine? Not the Camino, though there were years when I did contemplate walking it. But many times the magical island off the coast of Maine where I stood high above the ocean, nothing but Portugal somewhere out there. The little beach town in Mexico I have come to know and love. I could keep going and make a list of all the places I’ve been. But why? To convince myself that there’s no need to fret? To convince you that I’ve made good use of this life? That this is worth your continuing to read?
    Does this mean that at 83 my traveling life is over? Maybe. Maybe not. Though discovering what it means to be at-home — wherever I am — seems more and more like good preparation for dying.  
    Earlier today, I saw a Monarch butterfly busily traveling from tree to flower and back to tree. Dancing in the air with another Monarch joined by a simple white … is it a butterly? Some people call it a moth. I thought about the arduous journey the butterfly has already been on, just to arrive here. Most recently its work to break out of the hard, yellow- and black-spotted coat it had been growing in; only then to practice patience while its wings were drying so it could finally spread its wings and fly.
    I don’t know how long a butterfly can expect to live. What if the butterfly and I were the same? We’re born. We endure our growing pains, even enjoy some of them, learn the need for patience and, finally, having grown into our full colors, able to enjoy the wonders of freedom, the chance to fly, our work here completed, we die?
    What if why we are here, a question some of us ask ourselves, is no longer a mystery?  Simply a journey to come back home.


—Sara Bragin

life is but a dream

life is but a dream

but whose dream is it anyway
but if not, what then


—Paul Causey

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Why row?

Just go

with the flow.

—Veda Smith

A Lullabied Dragon

I am humming a lullaby
hoping my ego will fall asleep
sensing how tired she must be
Not just nap time,
but a long, wary sleep
breathing heat but no flames

I’ll check on her with regularity
for we are bound by birth
I have an unreserved love
for my companion -
feeling if she is able to rest
I, too, will be at peace

Of course, she may be startled
awake by the world knocking about
but by now I’ve learned which
lullabies may soothe her


—Kathleen Burke

Ants and zazen

 



— Kim Mosley 

A poem in response to: A Day So Happy by Czelaw Milosz and The god of good taste by Ingrid Fetell Lee

Because although I did meet the god of good taste 
He felt hollow to me
I saw others around me bowing and scraping to him
And even when I believed,
I was wrong not to participate 
In the ritualistic offerings of my authentic self,
In order to survive and thrive in my environment 
At the risk of being crushed 
The quirky awkward parts of me didn't assent and,
Their embedded smoldering coals,
Held tightly my joy and life force.
And now having emerged
And I say this boldly, while holding my breath,
As it's so new and fragile 
That there is no thing on the earth I want to possess.
And no one worth envying.
Just delighting in.


—Jean Lopez

Cookies




— Kim Mosley 

You Look at me and Wonder

Painted Rocks by Paul Causey


What am I. Is this art? What am I supposed to see?
You could tell all kinds of stories about me.
You could say how my sharp edges have been worn down
through the years by wind and rain,
how my rough skin was worn smooth by the proximity of others like me,
others of my kind seeking to find a place of last repose.

Or you could simply say that I am a rock and that is enough. 
I need to do nothing, to be nothing other than what I am. 
What you make of me is not my concern. 
I am what I am. 

If I could form words, have lips, a mouth to speak, 
that is what I would say. 
But since I have none of those things, 
have not that capability, 
then you must figure it out for yourself. 
You can look at me and wonder. 
Or not.


—Paul Causey
Inspired by “Reading John Cage on Sound” by Sarah Webb

Reading John Cage on Sound

Rocks by Sarah Webb


John Cage says, sound doesn’t have to
mean anything. 

I say, a rock
may be heavy in the hand
may grit against the fingers.
We don’t have to write on it Stone

though I have a stack of four
on my railing for just that purpose–
to write stone in black ink on the flatter side
to write a haiku about time compressed into layers
to tell the rock to be archetype, meaning

but maybe it’s enough just to be rock
and maybe that’s why 
the rocks in that stack have sat
through ten summers of heat and rain and the step of doves
and I’ve never written on any of them.


—Sarah Webb

What is a poem?

The writing group dissolved.
I stopped writing
for 15 years.

I became a doctor of sorts
and conducted a business of helping others hear.
I would not hear my own heart calling. 
I pushed down my stories, slammed the door shut
tossed the key in the weeds.

When the tidal wave of COVID hit the main land,
I found the Zen writing group.
I lifted a rusted key to a long-locked door to an infinite corridor, 
where pickled songs and fairytales lived.
Some tumbled out, eager to see the light and taste the air again.
Some turned their owl eyes away from the darkness, 
blinked in the glare of the opening, 
uncertain if others would entertain their ugly splendor.
Other songs remain in cobwebs,
buried deep among the bricks,
waiting for a time before death to be revealed.
Some may stay silent. 
Some stay afraid

The songs that tumble out, they take our hands.
They guide us to the poems that live on the earth:
to the little green grasshoppers that spring away from our footsteps,
in the long stripes of Bermuda grass that defy Texas drought,
to the striped spiders the size of a silver dollar sidestepping the drip of the watering cans.

There is a poem in the slide of horsehair across the violin strings,
in the furrowed foreheads of symphony players, 
determined to boil the perfect spell of sound. 

There is a poem in the scream of the child who has no words yet, 
in their parents who frown, and sweat and embrace their uncertainty, their fear and their rage,
in the silence of the audio booth that holds them together

There is a poem in the paper wasp that licks a small castle 
from nothing to something
in the space of 10 days

There is a poem in the chair painted pistachio.
Despite all its bumps and its scratches in its moving and time,
it resists a collapse,
stays upright and strong.


—Emily Romano

Being Born Human


Response to Birdsong, from the Terezin Concentration Camp

If the tears obscure your way,
try to open up your heart to beauty. 
Weave a wreath of memories.

The blind man listening in the woods 
sees as much as the sighted man, 
knows what the birds know
and where (in the world) he stands.

He cannot see the yellow wood sorrel 
but he can sense the timbre and tremolo 
and knows things about the birds
you haven’t dared to learn.

The birds he hears are free
but we make prisoners of humans.

Children kept in cages.
Here or there, what does it matter? 
Separated from their parents. 
Then or now, what does it matter?

Across the centuries
the birds observe
the anguish and the misery 
and still, the birds sing.

Oblivious to their song, in childhood
I wove a crown of vines in dappled shade
and wore it like a badge o’er my brain
in shadows like the camouflage my cousin wore
        when he was shot at
when his innocence was slaughtered 
along with his friends.

In my grandfather’s time,
he lied for the privilege to go to war. 
In my father’s time,
he had to be drafted.
In my cousin’s time,
the military was his last good option. 
In my children’s time,
can war cease?
In their children’s time,
which birds will remain
to sing?


— Erin Taylor

Untitled

bird sings in the trees
leaves sway in the high branches 
the world sleeps in peace


—Paul Causey

In Secret

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret.” — Pablo Neruda Sonnet XVII

One night I put God away,
packed Him—Her, perhaps it was—
away like an old toy, a childhood journal.
Not the right path I said, and it was true—is true
that God is too small, a cutout painted,
the edges jagged from scissors that tore the cardboard.

But I packed something else away that night
a love, some slant of light on the sparrow at the bench, 
from a face on the street.
Not gone entirely, some scrap
of song, a darkness on the wind
coming round about, not at the front door
but a leak through the sash of the window
no longer nameable.

Maybe this had to be—
to stop pinning and naming, being good,
to stop doing the work
and let the work lead on its secret way.
But, oh, I have lost—the honey
green of leaves in childhood,
a light like milk falling from a basement window.

Throw it on the fire my teacher said. 
If it’s true, it will not burn.
And I, childlike, threw it in—
God and all the sacraments, the voice 
that whispered to me, the desire
for light and sweetness falling from the air.

And so a long, slow burning
a prayer like a coal in the mind.
So many years, all the world burning 
and I do not know where I stand
in a land sacred despite me.

Me still wanting to love—but what?
a glow in the night sky?
Me still wanting to throw it all on the fire— 
myself, God, Zen, the boxes and doors and names,

still wanting to stand in the rain and be nothing but rain

still hearing a sound chink chink 
bird call, whistle tone
voice asking, do you love me?

and my child voice answering, Yes. 
Yes, I love you.

If you tell me to, I will do it again.


—Sarah Webb

Oops!

I know I shouldn’t make fun of god,
but I think he goofs every now and then.
So, what must it be like to be all knowing,
omnipotent and everything to everyone?
Pretty heady stuff I would imagine.
But what happens when that entity, that person, or god,
is carrying a tray full of paint of every color imaginable,
and steps over a mountain range,
catching their toe on the topmost peak.
Can you see it?

God cartwheeling across China,
paint flying across three provinces,
the music, can you paint with all the colors of the wind, 
playing in the background?
When the paint clears, is it a catastrophe?
Like the time I spilled my cereal all over my mother’s new rug.
Or is it simply another masterpiece,
like so many god has done before,
like the flowers covering the low valleys in springtime,
or the black and white paintings he does in winter
of snow-covered peaks in moonlight.

I suppose, these mountains in China
are just another example of god’s artistic
method of letting things fall where they may.
I’m beginning to wonder if anything is ever planned, 
any thought given to design in advance.
No wonder evolution is such a popular theory of creation.
After trying for seven days to get his technique down right,
he just quit and let things run their own course.
Now look what we have.

Unadulterated beauty everywhere.
It’s enough to throw your hands up in the air
and just sit, crossed legged,
take it all in and call it a day.
Maybe that’s it. Those mountains, 
full of color, unnatural color at that,
happened on the first day,
followed by everything else afterward.
No, those mountains in China were a slip,
a muscle spasm upending the paint tray of life,
what a spasm it was.


—Paul Causey

Inspired by the visual prompt: Rainbow Mountains of China’s Zhangye Danxia National Geologic

See Me (Lessons From A Blind Kindergartener) For: S.G.

They tell me of these colors bold,
Of wondrous sights to see.
What means so much to you,
Means so very little to me.


I reach out front,
Beyond me.
Teach me about what I can feel!
The seen path you take for granted,
Neglects the navigation of this hill.


The object dropped,
Reverberates,
Loud upon the floor.
The sound so piercing to my ears,
With ease you can ignore.


As I walk through the darkness,
I have you along my side.


When you close your eyes with empathy,
You become a better guide.


—Jess Godwin

Inspired by the visual prompt: Rainbow Mountains of China’s Zhangye Danxia National Geologic

Eclipse

Twenty-five years ago I fell into a deep well,
landed on the eiderdown, 
bounced up and landed 
on the ground and bounced again.

I floated into love, 
    covered in a coat of golden feathers,
       scented with you, like the green grass that bursts from the earth 
        after the spring rain.

As time and love passed away,
        most feathers molted and fell like ash. 
            I still hoist your colors, I still carry banners in your memory,

Though your sweat and sound have faded,
       the snow still melts, 
the crawfish scuttle from the rocks.
The blades of green return. 
Each year they hold me in a love 
where once I held you.

This is the love I walk in. 

This is a love I move in, 
a love that touches currents, a sound to tightrope.
This is a love that cracks the crust of earths,
that dwarfs the galaxies, and swallows 
the universe, whole.
This is a gravity I cannot escape, 
nor would I wish to,
for though the scent, the sound, the feel of your breath is gone,
I still walk in the cool night air we ran together through, in childish delight.
I know now, once, I was loved, 
when so many are not,
and that is enough.


—Emily Romano

The Rarity of Being Born Human

Inhale/Exhale

I thought I saw something out beyond the barn,
a light perhaps, a reflection off
the window of the house.
Strange little baubles,
blurred like streetlamps in the rain
in a watercolor painting.
Breath, inhale, exhale.

It’s nothing to be afraid of.
But the little girl, holding a basket
of corn beneath a starry sky,
that is something to wonder about.
Is she a figment of my imagination,
a symptom of the hunger I feel,
a sign of the need of the world and its fulfillment,
or simply that of hope and what will 
happen in the days, weeks, months to come.
I fear she is an illusion.
I fear that the people need more than
what she can give.
I hope I am wrong.
Breath, inhale, exhale.

I hope that her nemesis, the spirit 
of hunger for all things living is more
the illusion than the little girl.
Hunger will devour us all one way or another.
Hunger is not necessarily searching for food
for the body, but food for the soul.

The spirit of hunger is insatiable,
Corn will not satiate its cravings,
but power, fed by the energy of souls
will only increase its cravings.
More people, more souls, more power,
more, more, more is not enough.
Breath, inhale, exhale.
It is the only thing that is real.
Breath, inhale, exhale.
Be alive. Just breath.
Just be.


—Paul Causey

Girl With Corn

In the old way, there was corn, 
a food from the stars,
and wheat and rice and taro.

We worked together to plant and gather.
We added our life to the life given us.

Family is given and grown
in just this way.
Song, as we open to it.
Fire.

A girl stands in the night.
Stars open the black behind her.
Her dress is the color of coals.

Corn shines in her basket.
The green of its growing wraps it.

A bird has come to bless the offering.
The girl's hands hold the basket with care.
They hold the plenty.


—Sarah Webb

Rain on Tin

It’s raining here tonight,
the heavens breaking their weeklong fast
with the earth,
their drops landing softly upon my tin roof.
I can hear each drop as it lands,
like pins dropping into a glass bowl
and later, like the sound of bacon
frying in a hot pan.
At some point, their identities blend into one,
like a drum roll over my head,
but if I listen carefully,
I can hear each individual drop
as it hits the roof.

And then, all is quiet
except for the drops hesitating
before they fall from the branches
of the tree outside my window,
shaken loose by the wind
with a sigh and a resigned letting go,
a lingering memory 
of the soft rain dancing on tin.
In the morning, the sky will be clear
and I will be able to see for miles.


—Paul Causey

Mezzo Soprano

Dedicated to Tyre Nichols and Veronica Williams

They say there’s video.
I don’t want to see.
I hate these movies where another black brother dies.
I consider the man and the woman who made him.
I curse the men that unmade him.
I curse the silence of I and
America, America.

How we till our rich killing power.
How we stamp our silky dew rags, our many strands of black curls
beneath the steeled toed boot, beneath the iron hearts of power.

They say there’s video.
It’s enough to tear a real heart apart and lay it dying on the lawn.
So much blood runs out 
on these streets of America, caught 
in the hands, in the aprons of mother, 
the sister, 
in the name of the father.
There’s too much blood that’s watered this soil.
We think it goes nowhere.
But its slaked the root’s thirsts and made our ghosts stronger.

They say there’s a video.
I don’t want to see.
On flickering screens, he was too much to be. 

Time could stop.

Breath could cease.

I would understand
if this mezzo soprano before me
never sang another note
and hung her shrouded soul in dark.

But there’s a bird rattling in her lungs.
It has to get free.
The louder the strings sing all around her,
the harder the wings beat to flee.
Despite all this darkness, despite all this murder,
she lifts her heart’s corners,
smiles to the stage lights,
and the bird flutters free
on the old familiar strings:

We shall overcome,
Someday,
and she makes me believe.


— Emily Romano

Art Life

 



Hand

In the gray of the subway platform,
bodies pressed close, 
coats wet with melting snow.
At my face, a hand.
It wrapped around the pole,
its nails, curved and sharpened like a cat's,
caked black with dirt. 

It was a weapon, 
a paw with which to slash,
a hand shaped by fear.
Someone lived in danger,
might need to tumble sideways from sleep
and strike--to defend their life 
or their blankets 
or their single coin. 

When I edged my eyes to see whose hand
I found a short, slight man in worn clothes,
a man grown old unsafe.
He saw through his rheumy eyes
a world different from mine.

But don't we all know fear?
need to defend? wake in darkness?
I recognized that face.


—Sarah Webb

Beliefs

Do I believe as you believe?
Probably not.
Did I believe as you believe?
Somewhat.
Will I believe as you believe?
Definitely Not.

To me, belief is like the ocean near the shore.
Big waves forcing me back to the beach.
Medium waves covering me from head to toe.
Small waves gently lapping at my feet.

Core beliefs
I feel, I was born with these.
Equality for all.
Be kind.
Stand Strong.
Hold the hand of the helpless.
Remove the burden from someone’s back.
Protect the child.

Religious beliefs
I feel, I was gifted.
Love thy Neighbor as thyself.
Feed the people.
Place others’ needs before your own.
Bless the children and the animals.
Gather the lost sheep.

Beliefs can be mystical and contain Grace.
They can be the butterfly in a field of flowers.
They can be Evil, causing destruction and Death.
They can be the hurricane in the ocean.
Beliefs can come and go.

Will my beliefs ever match yours exactly?
Probably not.
Will you try to make your beliefs my own or the other way round?
Probably.
Can we learn to teach our children well?
Can we have our beliefs walk side by side?
Definitely.


—Melissa K. Tolliver