Flawless Tender Bloom of Reconciliation

Flawless Tender Bloom of Reconciliation

The original Plan—perfect but rejected. Sending hope cascading like a slinky toy down a staircase, coiling, tumbling, coiling, tumbling landing in a tangled heap. The same Plan—a different approach set into motion, to reclaim, and restore hope, unfurling it from earth to far beyond the stars. Unfolding, revealing year after year, a tender plant, growing…

Cabin Fever Compels Me to Bike to the Anacostia River

Cabin Fever Compels Me to Bike to the Anacostia River

Today I’m an astronaut. I need to shuttle beyond the orbit of my block. I launch east from my home planet: turning left, then right. I cycle through a few green lights, making sure to stop by the house with a train-shaped Little Free Library. Trains also travel to car-free universes. I discover a Golden…

Risotto

Risotto

Today I stand at the counter Chopping an onion with my favorite knife An ordinary act hardly worth noting But today I note it I chop onion Add butter Pour wine And ease slowly into the luxury of stirring a meal For the people I love Savoring not the aroma of melding onions and wine…

Cracked Viola

Cracked Viola

Entrapped by cold concrete, beauty unnoticed between back-to-school walkers, dog sniffers, after dinner strollers. Protected by a crack, fending off frost, courageous late bloomer. Could we be like you? Shining our summer colors when least expected? Hiding our seeds in safe places? Creating while waiting on winter to wane? Awakened by April snows – showing…

From the Editor

From the Editor

Dear Readers, William Wordsworth once said, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Even though spring is bursting with new life, evoking powerful feelings, it has a tranquility about it as well. Doesn’t spring just inspire poetry in your heart? Songs, poems, spoken word pieces….

Mending

Mending

There’s a pile in my closet:                 a skirt too small,                 a shirt too stained,                 pants too worn. They wait, expectantly, for a transformation, for deft scissors and clever thread, a re-imagination of grace. But I hang in the moment between the death of the old and the…

Soul Strong

Soul Strong

That day I turned around, and life had flown… Whilst chasing dreams and children; Both stumbling and soaring in the search for holy significance. Compassionately rescued from despair; Gifted with a grace that accepts and extends; Encouraged and loved. Discovering serenity in silence, and strength in surrender. Filled, then poured out. Heart broken, then mended….

Swim Lessons

Swim Lessons

For Ellis Kennedy, 4 years old I promised him yesterday That the water would hold him up, But he curled inward and snatched For my hands underneath him And dropped from the surface, Instantly heavy. I coaxed him to ear-depth And we blew bubbles, Eyes on each other. There would be no proof Unless he…