breath of the cosmos

d. ellis phelps

now is now is now again
now is now until the end
and there is no end
and there is no end

here is here and here again
here is here until the end
and there is no end
and there is no end

light slips in for a moment or two
light slips into me               to you
light slips out                      back into light
light becomes light becomes light becomes light

breath of the body—common breath
breath of the cosmos back to breath
what has become remains it still
still as it is and always will

be what it is                it is        it is
nothing goes               nothing stays
formless formless formless form
is here is here is here is now

light and breath and body bow

and there is no end 
and there is no end

somehow…put everything on pause

Brigid Cooley

the clouds are crying
and as the earth breathes 
a sigh of relief
i realize there are 
tears on my cheeks
that did not 
come from the sky
the soil is baptized 
but i do not know 
whether there will 
ever be enough 
rain to cleanse 
this world of its sins 
i roll stories of the day 
around in my mind like
a gumball on my tongue 
reminded of what 
it’s like to be young 
so misunderstood by 
parents who 
fall into patterns 
they carry on
and their children bare it
carry it in backpacks 
so heavy, their spines 
resemble question marks 
in the hallway, at the bus stop 
i collect their laughter 
like rainwater in a drought 
desperate to save it 
for a sunny day 
remind them it 
doesn’t have to be this way 
pray i can find answers 
to their musings 
and beg the stars for strength 
ask for patience as i wait
for some direction to take
or promise to make
now that i’m older 
this child’s play seems 
so much bolder 
than it used to be 
unsolvable mystery
i walk barefoot 
on the concrete
teenaged hand 
wrapped tightly in mine 
as we watch the others 
twirl beneath the downpour 
and somehow 
put everything on pause 

Another Day

Sandi Stromberg

	~After Zbigniew Herbert

Lord

I thank you for creating the world beautiful and very diverse
and for permitting me

				to explore the larger spaces
far from the small minds of my upbringing

so I sleep lulled by trickling water at St. Peter’s Fountain,
the keys to Geneva under my pillow;

slip into the cathedral’s back pew to thrill
at the Greater Presence in the organist’s Bach;

walk through Styal on a May morning, heavy
with peonies’ perfume and horse chestnut blossoms.

Thank you for taking me to mountain tops at early sunset
to witness peaks turned deep rose,

for leading me through museums where other artists
struggle in oil and stone to achieve divine creation,

and introducing me to the priests of Thoth 
on whose carved, baboon faces I find wisdom.

Thank you for the warm glimmer in the grocer’s eye
that blessed the young mother in me,

for the tattooed gypsy whose charm protects my son.
Reward the woman in Venice who stopped to talk Byron,

another who served me Ceylonese tea, the Dutch poet
whose framed fossil from the Virgin’s cave graces my meals.

Take them under your protection
along with the father of my sons who left years ago

for the desert, the ghosts whose names I have forgotten
though their prints still mark my soul.

Permit me to relinquish my litany of injustices
so I can experience mercy’s deliverance,

feel my own angers instead of bestowing them on others.
Forgive me that some days I feel empty

and retreat to the dark corners of my mind,
a lost sheep who refuses to be found.

Allow me to vibrate with the wealth
of my myriad lives, to sit another day

in an Ottoman house overlooking the sea
and sip caramel latte while loudspeakers chant the Quran,

so I may claim these diverse parts of me
who wander the world. 

still life with cat

Terry Dawson

alone together in the palm of early morning
a single lit lamp defines the two

the cat’s caterwaul suggests neglect:
the man’s absence in the darkness remembered

the storm that woke them has moved on,
whispering from a distance  

his seven days away in a place of origin
shrinks for him to far off rain

but for the cat a cloud of solitude 
—a vague resentment lingers   

~ 

a whiff of routine: coffee allows her 
to curl at last into this new day

the two feed now on proximity

~

like caffeine working its way to the brain
fall only begins to own its dawning
as summer reluctantly pads away

darkness fades like chloroform
foliage creeps like a memory

of where into being one first fell
like a leaf unclasped: another home

in this one— a purr:
a prayer
   an absolution 
      rises

Gratitude

Jennifer Lagier

Praise sun etched cypress
lifting needled limbs
above white sage and driftwood,
low-tide exposed beach.

Walk in mindfulness along gentle trail 
beside wrinkled ocean.
Pet passing dogs.
Dispense baked, tasty treats.

Meditate upon swooping pelicans,
golden-eyed heron,
trash-talking jays,
paranoid blackbirds.

Sit in silence
within a cathedral
of wind ruffled redwoods.
Feel higher power resurrect the soul, 
heal your heart.

Bless this bright day.

Holding

Lynne Burnett

Blue sky whiskered white in the glass 
of a lake, frothed green in the grand 
reach of a river, wind over grass—
an embrace melding fins with the antlered 
and pawed, crawlers with the winged.
Delicious—my bare feet sinking 
into red-brown dirt, this rock  
holding warm the sun, holding firm
any secrets heard.
 

The Listening

Lynne Burnett

From high above
snow falls:

a mountain
of flakes.

So deep
their listening,

only silence
rings

through the air,
spreading

peace unutterable.
Stop, step with me here.

Mudlark

Rachel Jennings

At the Thames, air, water, mud
are pearl grey, the hour as obscure
as this jet-lagged pilgrim might yearn for.

On a sea wall ladder, I step down 
iron rungs one by one
until wellies scrape stones,
then sink into primordial sludge.

Among swans, terns, I am the lone person
as if my kind did not shape the whole shore.
The tide is tantalizingly low.
I search for clay pipes, Victorian soles.

Here in the muck are offerings
believers throw into flowing waters.
Here, too, the scattered remains 
of oyster dinners, gin-fueled
games, bulging buttons that popped.

What comfort to learn 
that what we have lost
is caressed and preserved 
in the depths of the Thames.

I have no wish to sell these objects
or give my finds to a museum.
In fact, I plan to arrange them
on shelves of my own design.

I will pack some pieces for my therapist.
He shall ask, “What do these items suggest?”
Modern, shallow, how should I know?

Lovingly, I point my camera at each find.
Viewers, are you familiar 
with this coin, this bottle stopper?
What might these symbols signify?

Please share your insights
in the box below.

light-the marvel of it

Jeanie Sanders

The moon was that ghostly galleon
two nights ago.  Deep golden with
a peppering of clouds.
Such a beautiful, reflected light—
the marvel of it—
the deep splendor of it-
the pull.

It’s reflecting glory
glazes my arm
pulling my hidden primitive being
to the whole surface of my body.

I feel like howling to it—
dancing under it—
running with the wolves beneath it—
Or just gathering it into myself
as though it were my own private secret.

Desire and Fire

David Meyer

	for Minoru Terada, 
	Aichi Prefecture, Japan, November 4, 2012

	1

We know each other, not through language — his
or mine — but the pleasure of clay, of layered glaze,
of throwing rings which speak their own, plain

tongue.  I feel his voice, his hands in the dark 
mouth he opened, walls thin, foot 
twinned with lip, dents where he lifted off.

	2

He watches as my hands adore his work, 
then offers a wheel.  I try reminding muscles 
after decades how this ancient mystery 

works, but pull what passes for a pot 
only to hands that haven’t felt what his 
can do.  Fire can’t turn this to art. 

	3

Later, our sleeves and trousers streaked with clay, 
he fills saké cups from a matching flask,
all pulled by him.  By dusk he calls me brother,

invites me back to spend more days
making dust desire fire, back
to a life in which art creates kin. 

	4

But at our age, how many days remain 
for crossing seas? for hours glazed with saké?
for dipping the silken tip of a sable brush 
in slip, then caressing thirsty clay 

with the strokes of an ancient ideogram for peace:
woman under tiger-lily roof.

Wordless Prayer

Chris Billings

He awakens, rises, reborn
naked as a newborn 
for he feels, should the morning come 
when he does not awaken
he will give himself back
as he came into this world 
albeit a little torn, a little worn
unclothed, unhindered 
vulnerable yet comfortable 
he stands in the middle of the room
to stretch his aging body
unkink the kinks of yesterday's worries 
for the hopeful ease of today's promise 
he stretches to not find it a chore
to make it through the day
then, in all solemnity
presses his palms together
forehead to fingertips, eyes closed
breathes deep, then
raises his arms, spread wide
face lifted upward, eyes open
in a prayer with no words 
because the words 
have all been spoken 
thanks given, pleas pled
many, many times before
most in vain, lost over time 
yet some...some he hopes 

are still out there 
waiting to be heard

Rise and Set

Ken Gierke

The sun burns in the east and to the west, oblivious
to any mind that might consider its direction.

Under clear blue skies or in the chill of an autumn night,
thoughts are nothing, concerns meaningless.

To one that is celestial, rise and set are one. 
To fingers that flare, reach into space, atmosphere

and vacuum are the same. Answers waiting to be found
forestall nothing, foretell only the inevitable.

Edges

Melissa Wold

meander
between the we and me
not as one but as none

emerging from the sea

to be

nothing

something
evolving

aerialist
suspended art

hands and knees
crawl from the altar
whisper
winds of wisdom
lead me

to the edge
not at the beginning
nor ending, but the
middle
emptying vessels

refilling
gather stardust pigments
nature paints by number

ask: where is god in all of this

atheist sings the Shema

Kendra Preston Leonard

she’s an atheist, a mother
she used to sing the Shema
nonetheless
to her child at bedtime

she’s recited mourner’s Kaddish
for her ancestors
and for strangers
with her slow pronunciations
reading from a phonetic translation
as others around her
were fluent
their words flying out like birds
the beautiful woman to her left
rocking oh-so-slightly
as her lips moved

she wants a ritual without god
wars, lines on maps, 
she lights the candles herself
she does the work, eshet chayil

she sings and sings
no single melody
her Shema
becomes a single line of text
with thousands of 
cantillations
she takes her place
in the repair of the world

Why I Pray

Ruth McArthur

Despite not being altogether certain that anything is there or listening, I pray regularly,
not from a place of logic but from a deeper, primal place.  I need to believe there is something larger than me, that I am not all there is.

Read fws: prayers, praise, & blessings ii here.

Read fws: prayers, praise & blessings iii here.