What a slippery concept for me
Always falling through my fingers like sand
The more tightly I try to grip onto
Something tangible
The less I hold
Keep having
Moments of clarity
Juxtaposed
With the disillusionment
Aligned wirh my higher self, where
I am not afraid
What is coming next
Where I am now
Where I have already been
Where I am going
Feelings of peace
True tranquility
Radiate from within
Steady
Consistent
Like a heartbeat
I notice my perception shifting
Like a new pair of glasses
The same surroundings
Same environment
Yet radically different
I stop seeing everything I don’t have
All the bad parts
See instead
All the wonderful blessings
Everything that has gone right
When it could have gone
So terribly wrong
Gratitude pours into me
Like sunshine
I get to be here now
I get to be in a crappy motel
With a roof over our head
Isn’t it wonderful
We always have a place to be
Even that night in our 92 corolla
Isn’t it amazing
Everything is always working out for me
Isn’t it beautiful
I get to go work a responsible job
Im qualified and capable to be responsible for such important things
Isn’t it incredible
The money always comes to me, right when I need it most
Isn’t it magical the universe shows me a sign, right when im convinced
For real this time
I have no more cause for hope, joy and gratitude
I look to the sky
The sun and clouds
Big bright blue texas sky
And I can’t see it
A reason to hold on
To believe
To keep the faith
But I can feel it
In my bones
Constant
Like a mothers embrace
I am held
Even when I am free falling
I don’t need to believe, because
I know from experience
The divine will catch me
Or at least provide a parachute
And sometimes
When I’m really really frightened
I completely let go
And realize
I am not falling
I am flying
I am free
Tethered, held
By nothing but my own conviction
Belief
In myself
And the universe
Blessed Be the Elder Former Family Dogs Spending Their Golden Years in Animal Shelters
Cheryl Atim Alexander
May the Great Spirit keep you safe and warm while watching over your precious souls
May you understand in your heart of hearts
that you are not here because you did anything wrong
May you clearly recognize your intrinsic purpose and value
May you know you were, and are loved
May the Lord God grant you the divinity to forgive the ones that let you go
May the shelter staff extend overarching patience, compassion and mercy towards you
May the hope, faith and kindness of all the saints surround and comfort you
May the goddess send peace from all future worries, swiftly and softly to you
May the angels in your shelter abound with grace,
and may they love and guide you towards the best possible outcome of this situation
May the Lord God lead you towards your final forever home any day now
May you heal from any and all trauma incurred up until the present time
May the essence of your trusting spirit rise, and remain intact unto all eternity
May God bless you, always!
Let it be so.
On Frog Inlet
Michele Cuomo
Black clouds puff
like train smoke
traveling west
lacing telephone poles
and osprey’s nests
then fading into
morning’s gray.
And then I pray
to the God I jilted--
yes, I pray
that my Dead
found moments like this
and that they may
be here in the smoke,
or twigs in the nests.
Under a Dusty Bed
AKeith Walters
Words of an overused prayer,
with their thinning gray hair, wear a fashionable cut now, buzzed on the sides, fuzz-spiked on the top.
Trends still send them short-of-breath, though, to the nearest chair.
Perhaps a few more naps today anyway?
Some sleep deeply already snoozing loudly, rousing slowly.
Others prolong the day making a production of waking.
Much is the luck of such on a page resting on a desk hiding in the shade.
But these marks of ink and lead, these constructs of an aging head,
become a piece of the art of a less pious heart that beats still with its celestial iambic pentameter,
a natural rhythm to the genesis of faith in a carefully worded shuffle,
like a breeze that dances across the leaves of a book slow to unfold with scattered poems of supplication,
even if they are left with so many arthritic creases from over reading before being earmarked like an old prayer tucked in a box under the bed.
Like an Old Prayer
Della Andretti
~for my niece
How beautiful! Grandma said. — wild grasses along the highway — viridian green grace-full dancing with the breeze. I saw weeds. She saw beauty.
God smiled.
Look at this! Grandma said. —an intricate delicate web glistening in the morning dew —the proud, accomplished creature resting there I saw a frightening spider. She saw wonder.
God smiled.
Don’t deadhead those flowers! Grandma said. — dry fertile seeds — a legacy to how big and beautiful they once had been, could be again. I saw death. She saw life.
God Smiled.
You’re so cold! Grandma said. Take this. —a shy chilled child the season’s first frost —a coat, her stash, a tale her daughter had outgrown it. I saw poverty. She saw need
God smiled.
This fabric is lovely! Grandma said. —graceful, delicate lace glistening beads and pearls —her skilled hands making for a much loved daughter. I saw material. She saw a wedding gown.
God smiled.
You must keep that! My niece said. — yellowed silk —designed, cut, sewed, and beaded
I saw clutter. You saw grandma’s hands —a legacy like an old prayer: a glorious gown
Compline
Charles Darnell
Is it the end of day, or days? Heat lasts into morning, rises with the sun. Breeze blows hot like billows. Dante need not look far for the next ring of Hell.
Even sunflowers dread the peek of pink along the horizon. Vegetation droops by mid-morning. By evening, they lift rough leaves in prayer for rain.
And we are a clever species, we tell ourselves we will adapt, we will find a way. No need to raise our arms in supplication to an indifferent god. We did this,we can undo.
I am not sure.
At the end of day, I pray, not to any god, but to all living things, not for renewal,
In a medley of Classical and Hymn In this bleak December-rain and wet and wind In this darkness hold us-into Deeper Dreams All that is good becomes better- in common company Nightingale /hummingbird -half the moon means more (than you or me... We who love this world (and the Next) Accompany each other in the Quest Always listening/learning/inquiring Always YES/Affirmative /Altruists /Angelic Attunements Harp knows! Stroking her strings/Every Glow rises and Levitates Touching another part of us that sings/to be a form of Bliss/RELEASE! All pasts/flotillas of sunken ships/All errors /omissions/mistakes Hold Heaven Closer than Hell's cold desires-Release that Peace! So all you have ever felt/you will feel again/but it will have changed Belief is a choice we make/when facts fail us/and science means Sarin Find songs that reach inside our tear ducts/allowing us to know them as Hollow and Bell Hymn and Harp combine again/Way of Soft against Hard/Water around stone and rock Air between mountaintops. Trace of a smile/When Enchanted/You Can Hear Contentment Tapping on a window sill/Talking with the night/Night demands we listen/Deeper/Heart Calls! Stars arise in the eyes of passerbyes/Voices join in as they know enough TO SIMPLY SING!
Bow Before the Beauty of God
E. B. Staples
To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Isaiah 61:3
When the joy of sin Turns into pain and life is on a fringe. I am reminded of your glorious peace. In circumspect, I realized, I am still within your reach.
When I was slipping and falling away, your love reached out and took hold of me. You surrounded me and protected me from all the dangers I could not see. When I was lost and confused; You were there. You brought peace to my soul, whispered how much you love me and care.
You are my refuge, my mountain fortress in times of danger. Your presence calms my soul; quiets my fear and anger. There is no greater love, nor will there ever be. There is no one else who can save, deliver, and set free.
The Lord sculpted the earth with His mighty hands. He breathed the breath of life into the soul of man. God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs and everlasting praise. I bow before the beauty of God in reverence with my hands raised.
untitled
Jesse Morales Christianson
Candle Scrying
Julie Martin
Flame of fire Flame of light Bring to me second sight. Bless me, help me see The answers that are right for me. —Traditional Candle Scrying Chant
Gaze until you become transfixed on the flame that consumes all thought. As it burns down, the candle’s clove scent curls into recesses of memory.
Give yourself to this light, some seeds only break open under fire’s duress. In the clearing, from the destruction, flowers will proliferate.
Follow the flicker between orange and blue to the space between spaces, to the recesses of the heart. At the junction of gaze and flame.
light splinters into myriad points— A shimmer for every soul. This flame is one and many. Then it is just you and me.
Grasshopper Blessing
Julie Martin
O Grasshopper, visit my dreams, show me new ways to be, catapult me to higher realms, bestir epiphany. Long before the dinosaurs roamed the fossil records show Orthoptera made earth their home millennia ago. I conjure up your compound eyes and your three ocelli: with heightened sense, render me wise, expand all that I see. Hind leg and forewing stridulate, the moon coaxes your song, my intuition animates and starts to sing along. Bounce me into viridian forward thinking hurdler. beyond astral meridian O Vibrant Reveler.
Ecotherapy
Julie Martin
Oh dendrophile, oh lover of trees. Ruach. Whisper this word that means breath, wind, and spirit — graft the Hebrew into English. The wind’s trail is mapped on your fingertips, ferns unfurl, nod and wave. Pinecone bracts swirl future upstarts. The woods crave your exhalations. Sample the tang of balsamiferous air. As it circulates through your mouth, name all the scents you can trowel out— crush of fir needles, kick of wild ginger, umami of morels, lingering of cedar. Shelter in the lacework of shadows while lambent sun flecks rain down. What do trees know that we do not?
Please Choose The Ones Who Know Better
Nancy Fierstien
Planet Earth must have zillions of critters. And they all have their Dads and their Moms. But one species out there is the only one that sees fit to use nuclear bombs.
For the sake of this forsaken planet and the zillions of lives now at stake, it seems prudent to assign new dominion to the critters who truly will take
better measures to foster good living, to encourage each day’s needed breath. Let’s put in charge those who know better than to curse their own Planet to death!
Copy of “Monet’s San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk,” Linda Simone
On Viewing Monet’s San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk
Linda Simone
From Venice’s main island where I stand, a million strokes of ochre, lemon, red blaze sky— his brush, a torch. Even the small twin domes combust to orange glaze.
Only the purple behemoth— imposing monastery with its nine-belled tower— stares into twilight, unfazed, once a shelter for monks, casting violet gaze on the southern lagoon, broken mystery, whole.
EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES TO THE ACADEMY OF FINE IDEAS, IV
Benjamin Green
Mid-April, on a day that Arrived bright and still, almost warm, I thought about the Mesa-top and the ponderosas That grow there. It had been a long winter, With cold since Thanksgiving, When squalls of snow Covered everything for weeks, And now there was mud, a few Tentative shoots of greenery, With swelling buds on the cottonwoods, And my eyes followed my thought, Longingly, to the mesa Above the shadow-streaked canyon walls.
It was spring: by afternoon The wind blew, and I stood half-way Up the trail to the mesa-top, Stopping to breathe hard, and I was not just somewhere, or anyplace, But I rested right there on the trail That barely manages to Cling to the steep slope. And then-- I was, Not just “one” or “a man.” I was myself again, And I still wanted to see The ponderosas that grow on the mesa-top.
Then, the wind drew clouds into the canyon, And snow fell when I climbed past the Rim rock into the forest of pine. Snow piled, thinly, on tree branches; Ice crystals hung on long needle clusters. I walked in a fog Of snowflake, in a drift of white And gray and dark shapes.
This was the last snow Of that long winter. Two days later
It was ninety degrees, and I stood in Glaring light. On that day, all around me, Life began to live again. I was alive, and myself, And thought it was time To put in the garden.
THE INTENSE EXALTATION OF FLESH
Benjamin Green
I I have become a mere concept, filled with unwise knowing. The time has arrived To make the earth my lover again, To follow leaves from branch To creek, to travel from creek To root, and to climb up To the hard mesa top and soak My body down to the feet In the flowing sky of dawn, To discover my story in a warm wind, To rest in the shadows on stone Cast from ponderosa pines.
I climb. My hands feel rough bark, Flint, tall slender grass-- the elemental Beauty of things-- But no more ideas That turn into ideals. My touch expresses my intention, Resembles the willingness of rock, Intense in the light, and sun-beaten.
I remember, This is real, and not my idea: The canyon: the depths are not deep, The extent short, and yet the reach is far: With layers of rock, timeless in time; And ravens roosting in cottonwoods; Or vultures tearing at snakes-- All part of the unhuman excellence Of a Creation whose shadow I live in, immersed in power And beauty and eternity.
As I hike To the mesa top this morning, I see Prickly pears bloom with that yellow-orange distinction-- Glad appear the shadows on the hillsides under the junipers. I see the moon hanging low on the mesa, Sinking like a wildfire in the ponderosas: a glow over The canyon walls that buttress the sky and cloud, A shimmer over the dry red sand in deep gorges-- Over Church Canyon, over Ojito Canyon, Over Canon de Raphael Gallegos, Over Canon Cercado-- Waterless now, But under thunder, they flow And the divine ravens soar over them, Hovering over flesh-colored flowing mud. They come in pairs, the ravens, Gliding steep and black into the graying sky. Winged darknesses, Exulting. I see a solitary heron, and hear a cry.
Resting, I watch how in the canyon bottoms, Especially in the bosque, It remains night; downriver the darkness pools even deeper, With Orion hand-walking the mesa tops. The night, like a bird settling with dark wings, Leans on the canyon walls, still, Filling the rocky cleft with A stain of black shade. Eventually the daylight comes down to the ground.
The mesa lifts long shoulders Above the canyon’s cottonwoods, High above the stone and dirt and juniper They stand with ponderous weight; Below, like a wet iris, The creek runs; it courses in my veins.
Today, I know, this canyon has teeth, A fierce grin, and intense beauty. Finally, the sun overflows the mesa top And spills, runs down to the river bottom.
II It has been a long day. Pink volcanic tuff gapes over canyons of air; White Datura trumpets sing over red soil; Flame-shaped junipers arch the air over soft-colored rock; Centuries old, hardened scales Split the wind. Clouds open like a flower bud To let dusk settle in the sun-battered branches of a pinyon pine. Rocks compose a red scattering of stone under A wine-colored, violet-shadowed, sunset. Each in its own place.
My mind, wandering with words again, thinks Permanence, rock, wind, the unsolved. I look: tall and slender, but not in A man’s form or shape, primitive stone Composes the naked Spirit of the place. Today, within my life, I know beauty, but Life remains a hard union: where things are Almost unbearably real: The creek is wet but cannot drown, The rock hard and unforgiving, The beauty I see is true, heart-breakingly so, But dependent upon no human heart To be beautiful.
I descend the wild face of the canyon wall, And perceive that I am in contact with power. The sense of beauty is described By a raven, hanging still, motionless In the flow of air. I look down upon my house and garage; these, surely, will not remain for long after I am gone. Perhaps a juniper or a prickly pear will still grow, and the rocks will endure to rest in the red sand. Years from now, come and look for a clearing in the trees beneath the canyon walls next to the arroyo. I’d name them, these places, but the man-made names for things change. Upon your arrival, Ravens will still chortle from cottonwood branches, and with hope the creek will dance and weave under the moon’s reflection. Listen for it.
It was not too tiring: being, alive. Westward, a sinking light, illumines a path. As I turn toward death, At the end, let me return To the intense exaltation of flesh, To lean into this body long enough That I feel divinity within the world.
III Evening: The universe comes to earth Where I stand on the ground Watching a hawk Chase a fantail pigeon In predatory flight: High up, until they disappear Into the last sunlight, and Are lost in the blue sky. So would I fly into fierce mystery.
“Oak of Righteousness,” mixed media digital art, Diamante Lavendar
formidable woman sanctuary 
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