When you're my age,
you begin to appreciate the little things:
the bird feeder out the kitchen window
and the (gray) cardinal
with black-bruised eyes;
the way some winter-blue flutters
onto the perch;
falls away, arches up.

You begin to appreciate
the rosin caking your hands
and the ache under string-bitten callouses
on the first three fingers;

You begin to appreciate
the few moments of stillness
in the kitchen
between one act and another,

when the actors are changing
and the audience is still.

River – Force of Determinism

Sweep mosquitoes away like doubts. Blue curves
are negligently traced with fingertips.
Wind ripples. I suppose my hand deserves
the swaying sky and raspy ice-chapped lips.

The rolling movement makes pain bearable
and gentle even. Cold determinism
drags me resolutely, twining hair all full
of errant leaves. (You want to know my reason?)

First sweep mosquitoes away like doubts and taste
the sunny chortle on a wind-hewn cheek.
The streamlined body flies with undue haste,
inevitably slipping south to seek

the blue, sand-crusted eyes. Horizons wait
with tearful tides. (I compromise with fate.)

Naiya Wright

Naiya Wright is a writer and is currently living in Virginia. Her work has been featured in various online magazines such as Antithesis Common and Wild Child Publishings.

return to the Lord this season.
This is a great thing, and part of the Church
year--refreshing,
but a road taken while observing on its route

the winter rain, the bare trees,
other days the light--time.
It is a surrounding

experience. Ever even so small an offer,
there is the reminder that we have time
to come back. To turn, to turn, to turn.

Peter Menkin

Peter is an Oblate in the Episcopal Church. His writing has appeared in a number of publications, including Cermony, The Shepherd, and Westward Quarterly.

sculpture

my hands,
filled with wicked silhouettes
are no better empty
for still they
are not eloquent

flashing like prehistoric
fish through traffic
their backbones comprise
spine for my entire catalog
of simple gestures

meant to show ugly love being
pulled slowly into sainthood
as if some pretend russia
I can't describe would be
worth such sirens

my hands, my hands
whose wrinkled escapes
can only be worn by speaking
of rabid immigration
and gentle politics

they soften off the puppet clock
forgetting their tiny warrants
for black nausea and poetry
how strangely my hands
have survived...

Peter Schwartz

Peter is a poet, painter and writer. His paintings can be seen http://www.sitrahahra.com.

Bryon D. Howell

Bryon has been writing for many years. Recently, his poetry has appeared in The Cerebral Catalyst and The Cat's Meow. He is also the editor of an upcoming poetry
e-zine called The Persistent Mirage.