I slip outside into a corridor of clarity and breeze—
that pinking time when owls home to barns, when bats
fold their hunger into gloves of sleep and cranes
whoop in the morning like freckled boys on stilts.
One body: some days, I swear, one is almost enough.
But today? I want to climb free of this narcotic dark,
squeeze into [...]
I live in the Pittsburgh area, in the suburbs. Several mornings ago I was up a little earlier than usual, and the sun seemed to be coming up later than usual. I had the opportunity to watch out my kitchen window as dawn came to my neighborhood. Looking one direction out my window gives me [...]
When the moon becomes a mellow pear
on twilight’s bough, and stars swirl up like maple leaves
before they’re swept into the dawn, I’ve often
walked this garden where the voice of whippoorwills
would carry remnant melodies across long, dusky
hours. At times I feel this eastern breeze has lifted
me, somehow, beyond the soft-lit sloping fields
and conifer lined hills. To [...]
As we join the story, Jonah has earned free passage onto a ship to Tarshish by means of winning a camel race; instead of taking his winnings and purchasing a ticket to Nineveh, he instead takes the free trip, upon which the voice of God leaves him.
The first three days on the way to Tarshish [...]
Satan and the snake had watched each other for a long time before either spoke. It was mid-morning—it was always mid-morning—and the breeze was pleasant and warm in the thick tangles of shining dark leaves. The snake, a long purple shadow, was hanging in negligent coils from a branch of the tree hanging with blue-spotted [...]
Manchester County, New York, 1823
Late September
washes a season’s green
beyond field and village
and age seventeen;
only leaves
rinsed in afterglow
stir at Joseph’s homespun
passing.
He once knelt
in April grove,
drenched with that glory
of Father and Son.
Then summer wove roots
through his harrowed soul
as those parched by mockery
claimed the heavens
closed.
Autumn wind
shimmers into the trees,
quickening vision
of his pending task:
these hands will lift voices
silenced by [...]
Sing the song of Cain and Abel:
Cain grew grain.
While Abel
brought flesh to the table.
Their lifestyles underscore the fable:
Cain could maintain grain.
But Abel
took food unsustainable.
Then Abel, Cain murdict.
And what is the verdict—
jealousy, heroism,
or the first eco-terrorism?
_________________________________________________________
Danny Nelson’s “Sustain-Abel” appears in The Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/b10mwx/peculiar-pages/the-fob-bible/) but is making its online debut here at the Wilderness Interface Zone. [...]
Listen to Mark Bennion read “Waters of Mormon”
Amid the tingle of forest and shadows,
you ford through the water
to the sway of its purl and girth,
a surge of billow where air arrives
in speckles of light. The only
distance is the reach of your hand
and the life after petition and promise.
Trees rustle in incandescence
as the crowd’s whisper fades.
You [...]
Listen to “Sorrow and Song” by Mark Bennion
Sariah
That morning you came to me
I saw the lamp arising in your beard,
a flash of iron and fire
wisping in your robes and hair
dreams full in your mouth like jamid
and your gait uneven on the hardest soil.
I thought I knew what you were about to say,
how sweat and sand [...]
by Karen Kelsay
She is frail, her veil of happiness is
replaced in turn by fear, then bewilderment.
Today, she presents a branch before
garden lilies, like a child might coax a parakeet
to perch. Beside the magnolia, where shadows
meet white geraniums she once planted, the caregiver
settles her in a wooden lawn chair. Uneasy beneath
summer’s glare, she retreats to confines [...]