Lori Hershberger: Waltz of Light
And by the bridge I stop, three-fourths to home
To watch the shadowplay of parted light
Dispersed once by the wind and left to roam
On dappled hills, diffused in broken flight.
Continue reading . . . “Lori Hershberger: Waltz of Light”
Because we know the people
In the cities where the bombs
Rain down; because we know the town
And the chapel with the steeple
Continue reading . . . “Sheila Petre: Because”
There are those moments
measured in illness
when soul and body
are seeming strangers
Continue reading . . . “Gary Yoder: Family Feud”
Driving slowly by, I saw the desolation,
wished I were Andrew Wyeth,
or possessed the imagination
to see the essential prose,
Continue reading . . . “Daniel Hess: Remains”
“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.” —Simone Weil
They never meant to do him wrong.
Continue reading . . . “Sheila Petre: Then”
The haze of heaven whispers by,
And wingtips tilt to scrape the sky.
Who knew that man would ever fly
Halfway in between?
Continue reading . . . “Emily Gingrich: Between”
The workbook my student read this morning
Said heaven is too real to understand
Said the center is too grand
Continue reading . . . “Myra Wollman: Redacted”
Sarah J. Martin: October’s Birthday
A song for the birthday of boisterous October!
She celebrates, lavish, for thirty-one days.
Her moods and emotions are all things but sober;
We smile and indulge this extravagant phase. Continue reading . . . “Sarah J. Martin: October’s Birthday”
Lori Hershberger: Midnight Laundry
I washed my soul in the moonglow tonight
Scrubbed it clean and hung it to dry;
Under a wide and spangled sky,
I scrubbed my soul and hung it to dry.
Continue reading . . . “Lori Hershberger: Midnight Laundry”
Where lake meets tree and tree meets sky,
Where ducks and seagulls wheel and cry—
The waves hum tunes to slumbering shores,
And lonesome breezes drift and sigh.
Continue reading . . . “Emily Gingrich: Untouched”
Steam hisses twists and turns
As asphalt burns
Another farmer’s field
A fertile fold that nurtured life
Continue reading . . . “Gary Yoder: Hallowed Ground”
Claudia Lehman: Transfiguration
The muttering of some murderous flying thing
darkened the morning,
dropping fear like bombs, reminders of
the young blood on the borders in the north. Continue reading . . . “Claudia Lehman: Transfiguration”
For those who, fingering the rings in their pocket,
find it hard to enjoy the guinea pigs
I thank Thee for each quiet place between,
That place untouched by voice or phone or town,
A wood between the worlds, where dreams each scene,
Where waking find we Thee, and gladly drown. Continue reading . . . “Richard Stoltzfoos: Between”
Shannon Blank: The War Has Come Into My Bones Tonight
The war has entered
To my bones
And fever dreams
Continue reading . . . “Shannon Blank: The War Has Come Into My Bones Tonight”
Lori Hershberger: Evening Palette
The mountain swallowed the sun tonight
Tugged it down from the sooty sky,
Into the smoky red of horizon’s shade
And west into the shadows of Burma.
Continue reading . . . “Lori Hershberger: Evening Palette”
What is man that you are mindful of him?
We, squeezing a too-broad name,
distillation down to swallowable size.
Little drops like lemon that sprout aches
Continue reading . . . “Phoebe Anthus: Lemon Writing”
How is it that ye sought me?
—Jesus, Luke 2:49
We sought you sorrowing along the one-
day’s journey back to the Holy City
to find you seated in your Father’s house
astounding doctors of divinity Continue reading . . . “Josh Nisley: Quest”
What fog-fold forest softness
And breeze-brush touch tenderness!
O world beloved!
What earnest thrush-song
Continue reading . . . “Gary Yoder: Spring”
Hazy green leaves poking into a
thick, insipid fog,
I rush past the lamps
flinging out gold in a flame
Continue reading . . . “Marilla Hess: Urban”
In a story they read you,
long ago
The greenly grass grew
Continue reading . . . “Phoebe Anthus: You Were Young”
