Illustration by katyau / Stock.adobe.comthe dance
you dancers with painted faces—
bury your heads in shame,
silence those roaring bongo drums
around the blazing fires of burning incense,
remove leo…
Poetry
Photo by Eugene_Photo / Stock.adobe.com霜降之日 这是秋天最后一个节气 所有美好的东西都在过去 瓦上的霜印上了鸟的花纹 我还在写诗，没有在意这一生即将过完 桥上的薄霜留不下什么痕迹就已消失 深夜的火车从玄武湖那边 越过黑黝黝的紫金山顶传过来 草丛间秋虫微弱的抗议 Frost’s Descent On the last solar term…
Sandro Botticelli, La mappa dell’Inferno, ca. 1480–90, Vatican Library / Wikimedia[Midway upon the journey] midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within an endless war well it’s…
This project grew from a conversation with Kim Stafford during the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters conference, “Words = A Pathway to Peace.” We decided to send a poem for peace around t…
Photo by ongap / Stock.adobe.comfor Naomi Shihab Nye Eid al-Fitr Shavuot Pentecost 2021 I want to follow Naomi to walk in her footsteps to gather with her only the gentle words like fallen…
Photo by Mark / Stock.adobe.comRite of Baptism If you pass, know that you will have no say about what happens. Some of our people will hate you as they hate themselves. You must create a life wi…
Photo of melangeur by nobito / Shutterstock.comMelangeur The manual couldn’t be clearer about how even moisture trapped in sugar could ruin the melangeur, so when the granite wheels screech and some u…
Photo by Tim Mossholder / Unsplash.com[A person should fold up his world] A person should fold up his world put his head between his legs and so observe his existence say things of worth things that f…
And the Earth Opened Its Mouth At the end of June my earth trembles also at the end of August, and also after Sukkot, and also before Passover and afterward. Every movement of the dials on the face of…
Photo by Geert Pieters / Unsplash.comTranströmer The tea almost gone from our cups Ulla took off her glasses Said she met Tomas Tranströmer in his house in Sweden Schubert was playing The moment he…
Background photo by Sean McArthur / Unsplash.comLook — Santa Monica, so much like Italy. Old friend, remember when you and I lived down here? See all those fish shops? Here, come this way. A huge oran…
Photo by Fía Yang on UnsplashUne pointe de sel sur ma confession On vient me voir On me demande la mer Les algues et les poissons Je ne suis pas doué comme Jésus Pour l’autodérision Je reste là …
Photo by Hunter W on UnsplashFamiliar, Tartane, though I’ve never been here before. Whole coast, Atlantic, stops believing in sun, or maybe that’s me, bouldered by winter. Presqu’île de la Caravell…
Photo by Bowonpat - stock.adobe.comIf a love song is made of water, the water you hold in your hands right now is a lyric, a song inside the rusty tap released, coil of silvered music unraveling, shiv…
Liza Martin, Homelessness Home (2023), oil on canvas, 11 x 13 cmI’ve Been Border-Crossing All My Life after Anisa Rahim’s “A Russian Hacked My Pinterest Account” I’m not talking about the s…
Voyagerixon - stock.adobe.comIf you mix rainwater with tears laughter with sun tornado and the wind with rising indignation. If you cry for the children, barefoot open-handed, whose approaching faces…
Photo by Feng Weixiang (2012)Prophet When crows fly over the villages Panic erupts like a flash flood Soon after, as Nanmusa has prophesied A plague spreads along the valley Some life soon evaporated …
The mind skitters, its one rudder Being its own voice. The great Fascist poet taught me free verse. Trying to concentrate on “The forgiving Of an unforgivable crime” in a lecture By Emmanuel Levinas,…
Illustration by Karenna BrownConversation with a Postman I get used to loneliness, she says. Autumn is utterly close; politics distant. The cat’s a refined soul, but pisses all over the flowers. The g…
Painting by Karenna Brown The day moon sits like a crooked smile just above the horizon, spins in a sky as blue as Mary’s robe and travels to Afghanistan to buy lapis lazuli like the masters of the R…
I’m terrified of my migrant parents, always with their eyes set on flight. Is that how you solve everything, Papá? Are you going to once more do what he tells you, Mamá? I’m more terrified by…
Landscape at the Third Stage of Grief by Alexandra Lytton Regalado I This year my knees are having a hard kneel. This candle’s fire has two hard eyes. The…
At the said-to-be bottomless pond at the sand pit, the raft we discovered was a heavy barn door, maybe ten feet by twelve, halfway in, halfway out of the water where others had left it, probably…
Photo by Paul Domenick / Flickr This shadowed morning you write thought and read the garden You readjust the graded papers in your briefcase and wait for the enemies of knowledge to arr…