I. The World We Tumble On

trust

if you don't trust anything
trust light
trust water
the slow steady pace
of an ant.

trust earth
as it moves into night
and then,
i m p e r c e p t I b l y
negates the night
with dawn.
                           – Batsheva Wiesner

 

SIC TRANSIT, APRIL 8, 2024

One moon, no more, obliterates the sun;
One sun, no less, erased from human sight.
Predicted and surprising, all in one,
This sinking of the day into the night.
His ways are just, for just so was the moon
Effaced by the bright brilliance of the day,
And none could see it coming (coming soon),
Nor, having struck, it stealthy slip away.
Teach us to count our days, and fill the years
We tarry, as we tally each ellipse,
Nor let us sink in shadow to our fears,
Nor tremble every man at his eclipse.
The heavens speak Your glory! Now I see
The heavens speak that glory too to me.
                                                                             – Eric Chevlen


AT LLANDUDNO

Out on the Irish Sea,
The black bull-heads begin to form,
Mustering their forces for
What seems to be
Some sort of final storm,
After which there'll be no more.

For when the wind is done
With cliff and rock and soil and sand,
And puts away the moon and sun,
And blots the half-resisting land,
There'll be no need to storm again,
Until the morrow. Then . . . .
                                                     – Len Krisak
 

LAKESIDE AFTERNOON, RANGELEY, MAINE

Calm. Quiet. Peaceful. Tranquil. Like you,
sleeping.
Who knows when
the kazatske will begin? The silent band
strikes up below the surface of the lake.
Waves kicking, whitecaps dancing,
wind panting. The ducks are riding high,
bouncing in their own bathtub. Most
of the canoes retreat to shore, envious of
the sailboats rejoicing in the chaos of
a summer squall.

Just as suddenly the manic beat subsides.
Kazatska > polka > lindy > tango > fox-
trot > waltz. Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene....
The lake is filled with lovers swaying in place,
boats rocking at the tie-ups, rafts sloshing
over, buoys bobbing their empty water-
jugs.

Our world bouncing gently. Work forgotten.

Space and time
waiting for us summer dancers,
waiting for the music to start up again
                                                                       – Marian Shapiro


THE FOREST

No sorrows here. What could go wrong?
A dry stream bed? A fallen tree?
A sudden flooding thunderstorm?
Yet all continues life in song.
A Summer’s warmth, a Winter’s cold
inside this woodland without worry.
Such melodies while birds soar free,
renewal patient, slow to hurry.
Our tented firmament stands bold.
Of past and present, leaves may flurry
where in the halls of time, winds gust.
Yet nothing blooms with anxious eyes.
I have my faith. I have my trust.
                                                             – Lucia Haase

 

THE WATERLILY

Living in water
stilled,
the waterlily rests
until a breeze

ripples the surface
gently moving
the petals,
and there’s a lift

of fragrance
stirred
by ink of the pond
to the world.

The bloom
in lily language
writes it’s own
legacy

it's own story
of grace and praise
peacefully stemming
from ground beneath,

and gazing
heavenward faithfully,
isn’t that what
He asks?
                  – Lucia Haase
 

Prayer for Writing Green

 

 

Noted poets reading before us are green, keepers of trees,

the fish in divergent streams.  One lives candle-lit, another

wears gauze made of hemp, canvas shoes, cotton ribbons.

My poems seem profligate, choked with clauses, the sea’s

metaphors squandered, coldly alliterative: wasted whales,

dying ducks, pervasive plastic.  Too late for purge or sage, 

I pray my pages give me poems worth the leveling of hard-

wood trees, whole pine forests felled for thick anthologies,

cedars, softwood trees for bargain staples. May my stanzas

rub against each other flaunting energy, my pauses mulch

the underbrush, upper cases cleanse the forests of detritus,

erasures generate, iambic sentences engender lush deserts.

                                                                                                                          – Florence Weinberger

 

 

INVISIBLE ISLAND

I take the trail where the sign leads, head into pain then medicate, take it as far as it goes, zigzag past birches to low lying manzanita, into wild garlic, where I find a darkling thrush, eyes sparkling. I wake. It's dawn. I'm still sitting in the living room chair. I don't possess Elizabeth Barret Browning's laudanum, have to contact the plumber, have the furnace serviced, research window cranks, don't live in Casa Guidi so can't make the rounds of churches in search of frescoes, can't find a wine bar with pinot grigio, a soft cheese accompanied by fig jam. I'm not asking the Buddha to reawaken this day, not asking for spiritual cultivation, but could use advice on enlightenment.

where this trail diverts
oh invisible island
oh trembling lilies
                                    – Laurel Benjamin


CONTRAILS

Because I thrive in Spring and Summer
I suspect I will die when the sun is down
during a winter of my discontent
when the now-kissed trees go gray
untouched after sparkle ceases
and rain begins its soddening work
toward resurrection and another day
of grandeur for my progeny, but
for now, I only watch an airplane
soaring beyond its fading contrails
whispering to me of loss
within this, my momentary whiling.
                                                                     – Edward Coletti
 

 

A UBIQUITY OF BLUE

Lapis lazuli on my tongue
prayer
for bright, clear skies
however blue a blue may be—
David’s blue star
billowing.

From deep recesses
opalescent blue hands
bejeweled with purity
to repel the servitude
of evil eyes.

Kitchen window
cerulean with moonbeams
Yahrzeit candle
flickering all night
whispering
your name.


Think blue—a value
of darkness or
under your feet
a reverie
of brickwork
sapphire sacred.
Weary of an ancient world
frayed blue threads
of Papa’s prayer shawl
tucked inside
memory’s drawer.

Rods and cones dazzled—
breezy fields
of spring bluebells
turquoise stomps
of blue-footed boobies
my husband’s gaze
of wordless trust
that renders
sky and sea.
                           – Rikki Santer

 

SUNDAY MORNING

A great woman stands at the door of her house
Selling the effects of the man of God:
A bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp/
A garage sale on the front lawn
In a small American town, in the Catskills.

Neighbors gather, examine axes,
Hunting rifles, rusty saws,
Try on bearskins in front of the mirror,
Lie down on the bed with muddy boots.
Pay in cash.

I buy the cloak, drape it over my clothes,
Cross the Hudson, immerse
Seven times in the river.
On the opposite bank children are running toward me
Stumbling, naked they fall
From the bank, roll into the water.

I pass by them.
In the thicket of reeds I spot a skinny boy,
An eagle scar is etched on his bald head,
A shadow of mustache on his upper lip.
I recognize him –
He is my son. I am not his father

I place my mouth on his mouth
My eyes on his eyes
My hands on his head

He wakes up.
Shakes himself. Stands up
And immediately continues on his way.

Small boys gather round me
In their hands are figurines of bulls, they run
Between the trees of the wood, they sing
Here comes Elisha here comes Elisha
That’s the prophet the man of God.
                                                                 – Amichai Chasson

                                                                    translated by Esther Cameron


ELUL

From the ends of my fingers grains of sand trickle
They return to the beach, are swept away by a strong current
Collect in the cracks of the asphalt, thin fissures
Leading them in an incised channel.

Grains of sand melt among the swimmers,
Unite with their brothers on the shore
Of the sea, are swallowed up like the sun
In the water now

Pale stripes are exposed
On the suntanned skin of my children
Signs of sandal straps
Scratches from the rocks, a thread
From a worn-out towel is caught
On the edge of the broken nail
Of a little toe.

The sun disappears
The day is done.
Soon we will return
And pray: please
Forgive please.
                                             – Amichai Chasson
                                                translated by Esther Cameron


POEM
                      -- In memoriam, David Citino, 1947-2005
 

Beyond the ash of autumn –
This thread of milkweed
Blossoming in the bee’s dream.

The Coral
The angels closed their eyes and wished.
Their snow-like memories of starlight were given to us;
they let themselves into our houses,
our coral bodies that feed in the blue morning;
our feathery polyps fanning in the tides.
The bodies of our fathers and mothers accumulated.
Our bodies grew into a full-veined blossom color of blood.
How our bodies shine in the water where sun strikes.

And the enamored creatures gathered into the warm seas,
vassals of the dynasties of coral over ages.
Their loves curve finger-like over the reef.
blessed coral fish of reefs, star-like angel fish,
barracuda, hermit crab of lost souls,
the eel in waiting, the goat, and the butterfly fish:
They have spent their lives in rooms of bones, our cities:
*
Lifetimes spent accumulating
mean nothing to us now. Coral spirit,
the starfish and the sea feather,
the wide-eyed blenny and the glassy sweeper,
Christmas tree worm and the moon jelly fish;
the dead sea creatures are released like Angels
into the starlit synagogues of air above the sea.

And just as cranes in flight will chant their songs
and stretch in legions across the sky;
so, too, when we die we give our bodies
to the reef. Our spirits rise bead-like
one after another, ghost-like from the sea. We drift
like feathery clouds on the trade winds,
an army hungry and tired and coming home.
We find the places where water ends,
Following the journeys of horizons lacing the world,
we have learned land is similar to the sea.
this is the rich black dirt, the brown sand called earth.
There mountains, like the coral bodies of ancestors,
bear in their arms these streams, their nourishment.
These trees wave in the winds like seaweed, strong brothers.
*
Lumbering snowflakes that we are,
we kiss the grass as we kiss the sea.
we fall discarded by the sides of roads,
over the villages of humankind, the small mountain towns.
We become black with soot. Still we fall;
and it is a wonder to me, how in the bare trees
the birds flare their wings and circle home.
And it is a wonder to me,
how the bodies of the wolf and the cougar
are lit by the moon on the snow at night.
This is the world we tumble upon, into the streams
of the white-tipped mountains.

We flow to a city, sift through gravel, through taps.
We fill your glass, your eyes wide in thirst late at night,
The winter night spreads across the silhouette of moonlit hills,
and moonlight filters through the slat curtains of your apartment.
It falls over the hanging, copper basket
where the apple and the lemons sleep. Moonlight
falls over your hair and your half-bared shoulders.
Spirits of the ocean, on moonlight
we flow into the warm seas of your body;
we come to know your loves.
                                                             – Stuart Lishan
 

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

The late day when the mountains unfold their shadows
like cloaks of solitary men
who give hesitant embrace
in this uneasiness when night is beckoned with smells
the resurgence of sweet grass, damp clover and moss
when the trees grow closer to whisper the birds to rest
here in the darkening spaces left under the mountains’ shadows
memory arises.
                                – Susan Oleferuk


THE GARDEN

Breaking waves
Remember
Tangled archway
Enter
Pink beach roses
Inhale
Sea birds calling
Listen
Vibrant, yet so peaceful
The way that it should be
                                                – Dawn McCormack
 

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