Canaan
By Richard Stoltzfoos
Unknown, I walk along the brown dirt way
To a near-vacant town of well-known name.
Most folks who find this town will never stay,
For its inhabitants are hard to tame.
Unknown, I walk along the brown dirt way
To a near-vacant town of well-known name.
Most folks who find this town will never stay,
For its inhabitants are hard to tame.
Marlene Brubacher: Christmas Eve
We thought we knew You, Elohim—
burnt sacrifice;
the law supreme;
the temple, veiled; Continue reading . . . “Marlene Brubacher: Christmas Eve”
For centuries you look upon this town—
O distant moon—where generations keep
The covenant of Abraham; men weep
For sins that bulls’ and goats’ blood cannot drown. Continue reading . . . “Rebecca Weber: Bethlehem Dawn”
Marlene Brubacher: Tidings of Great Joy
Not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us,
for we have sinned, we and our fathers before us.
No grace is ours, for Continue reading . . . “Marlene Brubacher: Tidings of Great Joy”
Rebecca Weber: Love Reawakened
You cannot move my heart again, I said:
Those days are past, when guidance from Your tongue
Awakened—as a love song slowly sung—
A rich devotion in my heart and head. Continue reading . . . “Rebecca Weber: Love Reawakened”
Sherri Steiner: On a Winter Dawn
A lone pigeon perched on the peak of the world
Watching the new day dawn.
For the former days had been gray and gloom
And he cooed all the golden on. Continue reading . . . “Sherri Steiner: On a Winter Dawn”
Michelle King: After the Poetry Reading
I.
We wove through the pines and our patches of pavement,
Till we found each other and 2 PM,
Arms loaded with ripened letters.
Then drops of grey slid down our shoulders. We clambered into the house. Continue reading . . . “Michelle King: After the Poetry Reading”
winter’s border wind
lilts through smoke-
weathered
attics, across façades Continue reading . . . “Renea McKenzie: echo and song”
And all that has passed before us: this day, this rain,
The sunshine and the green, green meadow,
Each flashing smile, each look of light
Is swallowed in this night of between; Continue reading . . . “Lori Hershberger: Interlude”
Poets have been silent
On the salty theme of cheese.
They prefer to bend the rhymes
Of mysteries such as these: Continue reading . . . “Sheila Petre: For Julia”
What if – when Christ ascended through the clouded sky
His frame was sown as particles of dust – Continue reading . . . “Richard Stoltzfoos: Pentecost”
Upon a summer fleece of woodland’s best,
I lay beneath a spiderweb,
Myriads of atoms all tumbling one on top of another
Reaching for the blue dawn’s spectrum and a midnight moon. Continue reading . . . “Michelle King: The Tree”
Sheila Petre: Upon Encountering God
The key to comprehension is reduction.
If a thought has got beyond you, tug it back
Lest its gist be lost in vastness
Or your spirit swung from fastness, Continue reading . . . “Sheila Petre: Upon Encountering God”
Lynn Michael Martin: And So We Sleep
And so we sleep, forgetting all that harms;
our sleep itself a praise to him who stands
a promise in the night, whose ageless hands
caress the children cradled in his arms. Continue reading . . . “Lynn Michael Martin: And So We Sleep”
Christopher Good: Eulogy for a Poet
These words will end in dust, as all things die.
Their paltry lines will crumble all apart—
Pray thee preserve them, artless though they lie. Continue reading . . . “Christopher Good: Eulogy for a Poet”
Leonard Nolt: The End of the Day
Let the day end
Let the shadows lengthen
Let the birds sing their last songs
As the wind slows Continue reading . . . “Leonard Nolt: The End of the Day”
I reach through the dark for the door,
Unsure
If it stands ajar, the edge too near my nose, Continue reading . . . “Sheila Petre: Against Hope”
Kenneth Godoy: Like a Brick Upon Everything
perhaps in the wither of the mother’s hand
now that she had taken cancer again,
or the silent scream of three birds Continue reading . . . “Kenneth Godoy: Like a Brick Upon Everything”
Lynn Michael Martin: I Saw the Daughters of Joy
I saw the daughters of joy today,
Dancing in the dew.
They shout and they tumble as they play Continue reading . . . “Lynn Michael Martin: I Saw the Daughters of Joy”
Light bleeds from the evening sky, and I know
Somewhere the morning dawns. The wind rises
Rustling the skirts of the brittle drought. Continue reading . . . “Lori Hershberger: Unforsaken”