Category: Poetry

standing
in Divine assembly
each
tree with its own connections
its
own message
its
own role
its
own journey
through
life

so
too, we humans
stand
in Divine assembly
each
of us with our own connections
our
own story
our
own journey
through
life

no
matter where we stand
grief
will find us

Agamemnon
charges us to
tell
the story of grief
and
Jewish tradition calls out to us to live
the
story of our
grief
it
begins with aninut
– from death to burial
when
we bear no responsibility to G?d outside of grieving
to
shiva
– seven days of the community coming to us
to
shloshim
– thirty days of living differently
out in the world
and
then eleven months of saying Kaddish every day
and
always, always, four times a year
together
with everyone else
remembering
out loud our grief
until
we no longer walk this earth

and
every single one of these times
standing
together
standing
in Divine assembly

no
matter how joyous an occasion
a
pause to remember the dead
allowing
grief
acknowledging
grief
with
words that say nothing of loss but which praise G?d in ancient Aramaic
a
reminder
with
Agamemnon
of
the everpresence of grief
and
that our experience is nothing new
yet
acknowledging
that
on the
level
of G!d [Elie Weisel]
some experiences of life and grief
perhaps not our own everyperson kind
of experiences
but some
forever
remain
the most disturbing of
mysteries [Elie Weisel]

and
for the trees
what
does it mean that we are upending life on planet Earth
what
does it mean to the Divine assembly where G?d judges
what
does it mean to us
what
does it mean to the oak and the willow
the bumblebee and the ant
the buffalo and the rose
the rhinoceros
what
does it mean to Agamemnon
what
does it mean to G?d

does
this level of grief
about
the injustice of who is suffering most
about
families forced to migrate to stay alive
about
innocent people disappeared
or
thrown into concentration camps
about
the loss of so much
so very much that is beloved
about
the fear that is stoked
sending
otherwise reasonable people
into
rabidly defending their little corner of this precious planet

can
we possibly honor, hold, and experience
this
level of grief
or
will it
on
the level of human, redwood, bear and daisy
mountain laurel, spider, wasp and
fly
clover, mountain brook and pebble
be
simply too much to bear
too
vast to comprehend
too
complicated to express
even as it grows more intense
and
remain forever a most disturbing
of mysteries

℘℘℘℘

Katy Z. Allen is a poet and a devoted lover of the more‑than‑human world. A retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, she has also served as a healthcare chaplain, co‑founded a Jewish climate organisation, and works as an eco‑chaplain. She is a member of the LGBTQ community and has been writing in one form or another throughout her life. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Amethyst Review, The Bluebird Word, and Art on the Trails: Number 9, among other venues. Her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text, was published by Strong Voices.

Across the swaying yellow fields,
Vincent is startled by the stunted olive trees
That stretch outwards, upwards
Buffeted by the West wind,
Yearning to seize
The scudding restless clouds.

How they envy their lone companion:
A cypress standing apart, alert,
Such strength in its dark purpose,
While they are chained to their parched quest.

How short the spooned-out time Vincent has left
To trap this pointless struggle, while the wheat-heads
Shift and hiss their ripe displeasure
At his presence.

They are vipers.

Last night, he dreamt
That his thighs, suddenly muscular,
Propelled him upwards, effortless,
To perch upon the cumulus and cirrus,
And then he awoke in sadness,
Unkempt, imprisoned, his head tolling
Like a cracked church bell.

That seductive memory will not leave.

Vipers are curled beneath his feet.

So now, with
Mustard stained fingers,
He stabs at the canvas again, again, again,
His sword a coarse hog hair paintbrush.
He shivers with desire, for another absinthe,
For someone to ease his lone journey
Of escape, to join him behind the lowering sky.

The olive trees, the cypress, all murmur
That Vincent, whimpering,
Will never see them flower,
That his trembling torment
Will never be grasped and set aside by
The fleeting, fleeing clouds.

The vipers strike.

℘℘℘℘

David Allard is a London‑based writer enjoying retirement while continuing a lifelong engagement with the written word. His work includes numerous poems and short stories published over several decades, as well as a crime novel, The Last Resort, released under the pseudonym David Strauss.

I
I was escaping a traumatic day
on the road with my dearest friends
when he fell in step beside us on the way
and the world began to glow again

II
I was a bastard, a tool of the State
until face down in the dirt
I heard voices uttered promises and groans
was made and unmade among stones

III
Of course, I was tempted to walk on
the complications the expense
he was a naked, bleeding Other
ashamed to ignore him I made him my brother

℘℘℘℘

Chris Ringrose is a poet and fiction writer living in Melbourne, Australia. His latest poetry collection is Palmistry (ICoE Press, 2019). Creative Lives, a collection of interviews with South Asian Writers, was published by Columbia UP in 2021.

Here I sit in nothingness, asleep
while I close my eyes to darkness
as it falls around me.

There is a line darkness does not cross.
And still there are shadows:

flesh doesn’t wander over spirit or death.
(The flesh is quickest to disagree with eternity;
the bones are slowest to turn over in graves
of dust and water.) Spirit can never die.

Spirit never dies while we are awake but
sleeps at night like a universe of endless stars
expanding into nothingness, to never reach
over the edge of an infinite void, a dark hole
of remembering everything and giving it more
weight, more gravity to nothing escaping,
as every thought is compressed into words

℘℘℘℘

P. M. Flynn holds a BS in English from East Carolina University. A devoted roaster of organic coffee and enthusiastic baker of cookies, he pairs his creative pursuits with a long record of publication in respected online and print magazines. His debut poetry collection, Shadows on Moss, was released by Resource Publications. For more than fifty years, he has explored the deep interplay between art and theology, a commitment that continues to shape his writing and imagination. 

I thought I saw you at the market
after you died, and again rounding
a corner on Monte Sano, past Holy 
Trinity. Convinced, despite your ashes
in an alabaster urn, I follow my mother 
until she turns to look at me with the wrong
eyes, wrong smile, three inches too tall –
this body was not yours resurrected. Yet,
the absentache does not dissipate, 
but burrows deeper in the bone. Doctors
say it’s quite common after amputation
to feel pain where there is no longer a limb,
experience it as fully as when it was
part of your frame you could see
and touch – the missing part remains
present somehow despite its removal.

I wonder if Christ misses his body,
now ascended, misses the smell
of his own skin and sweat, timbre
of his own voice, touch of his mother’s hand
sweeping hair from his face, even well into manhood –
does he miss his father’s hand on his shoulder,
the grip of his fingers around a hammer,
unravelling a scroll? Does he reach to touch
his chest where the pain of humanity
still throbs, but there is no ribcage, no pumping 
heart? Or does he try to conjure the scent
of spices, taste of roasted lamb filling his stomach, 
the sensation of sleep? Does his side still
flinch with the memory pain of a blade
sunk deep, do his fingers long to trace
the borders of his wound?

℘℘℘℘

Nadine Ellsworth-Moran is a minister serving in Georgia, USA. She has a passion for writing and the arts. She is fascinated by the obscure and the way grace shows up unannounced. She has been published in over 60 journals and hopes to continue to find ways to put the indescribable into words. She lives with her husband and five unrepentant cats.

the Lord is my shepherd and I / do not want to / lie down in your pastures / of fake grass and chlorinated pools / where the sun beats down on / our languid bodies and we are told / this is good even / though the heat feels like noise and / our thoughts have slowed / like tar

and you have closed / the entrances to the valley of / the shadow of death and / you have told us the shadows / have been banished / nothing to see here but I / want to see what that looks like and / you say I’m dwelling on the wrong things / why not dwell here where / there is a banquet that we will take / pictures of and post them so / those who admire us and those / whose admiration feels like / spite and those whose spite makes us feel / admired or at least victorious / so that they can see and try / to forget about us or talk about us / and surely / goodness and mercy will follow us all / the days of our life just in case / we hold still / long enough to / feel how much / we miss it

℘℘℘℘

Martine van Bijlert is a poet, writer, and artist who grew up in Iran, now lives in the Netherlands, and in between worked as an aid worker, researcher, and diplomat, mostly in Afghanistan. She is the author of the poetry collection Peace, Peace They Say.  This was first published in Hot Pink Magazine.