featured image by Melanie from Pixabay
Yahia Lababidi
“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” -Walt Whitman
For John
There are leaves & petals strewn
on my bedroom & bathroom floor,
as if I’d returned from sleepwalking
in the woods which, in a sense, I had.
The stroll, with my almost 3-year-old nephew,
ended up being more of an extended bow—
as the awestruck child knelt, reverently,
to gather bits of nature into my pocket.
The green called out to him, wildly & he
responded, exuberantly, collecting
what he could fit into his small palms:
a pretty orange flower, for Lisa,
his sister, who stayed behind
and tiny berries, he called apples
Everything was new, important
and worthy of closer inspection…
a poem is what makes you smile,
when you are alone.
White
Snow of old age falls, steadily
while I stand before the mirror
using my razor as a shovel
to clear the walkway
to a face I remember.
Yahia Lababidi is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose. Lababidi’s most recent works are a collection of his meditative aphorisms, Quarantine Notes (2023); a love letter to the deserts of Egypt, Desert Songs (2022); and spiritual reflections, Learning to Pray(2021). He, regularly, posts short inspirational videos on his YouTube channel.
Madronna Holden
Maps of Blue Wells and Sunlight
I
Our minds are mapped on our lands:
the storytellers who knew this
never ran out of stories.
I could map my grandfather’s mind
by the land in Moravia
where he spent his boyhood—
trace the pattern of his thinking
in the swell and give
of those hills.
I learned to locate his tenderness
in the corn reaching for the sun–
in the sweetness of the trees
where the forest
liked to gather.
The dew in his eyes
related how the river
kept its water or sent it away–
the way black soil
welcomed the rain.
II
If you want to know what thinking is,
you should sit on the grass,
feel the hum of life under you.
The way the land slopes and flows–
that is how we know nearness
and proportion—everything that
can be counted.
Blue water is the calculus of deep wells
and sunlight—the physics
of our moist inspired breath.
The philosophy of life
is in the headwaters
of the near river
and our souls in the vision
of wildflowers that make
each of us singular.
III
Thus I learned where everything was–
how with synapse, circuit,
little cell—the brain swings
on the trapeze of trees.
So that if our logic stumbles on asphalt—
our reason trips itself up
on factory-exhausted air–
our cure is to look at the land
and begin thinking
all over again.
Indwelling
Come closer.
This fire will all too soon
be ash.
I would tell you the story the moth knows
for making peace with the night.
The story tears have for making medicine
out of grief.
The story for eliciting the purr
in the belly of the tiger.
If you listen to your blood
you can hear the story of the sea
pulled by the moon
in the open sky
pouring the water of rivers
into your heart.
You can hear the aria
of the wind that the birds
know by heart
singing the story of your body
a hundred generations
in the making.
Come closer:
This is the story that will be yours
long after I have left this place.
Madronna Holden is using her recent retirement from university teaching to concentrate on her poetry, which won the 2022 Kay Snow Poetry Award and has appeared in over three dozen literary journals and anthologies including Cold Mountain Review, Verse Daily, The Bitter Oleander, Leaping Clear, Equinox Poetry and Prose, and the Plumwood Mountain Journal. Her chapbook, Goddess of Glass Mountains, was published by Finishing Line in 2021.
Willow Annan Rose
Sweep the threshold
Sweep the threshold,
unlock the door,
put the busyness away–
what comes is far
too important.
Build a fire,
quiet the house,
all your sensing is required.
Hear the hoof beats?
The full horse breaths?
Mice may scratch in the walls,
spiders rattle the roof,
you’ve nothing to do
but be home.
Movements beneath your skin,
flashes of thought,
quickening heart,
allow them.
This is a welcoming.
You don’t know who approaches
only that they must.
Freedom blooms
as we set
a place for everything.
What you carry in your blood
has voice–
Let her sing.
Willow Annan Rose grew up held in the sway of the salty Pacific. Winter swell crashing against granite cliffs, pelicans flying low, pine, sagebrush and sand raised her as much as the humans around her. She is a student of Spirit, the body and the wild, of herbalism, Jung, dream, and the word. Letting poems wriggle to the surface, she kneels down to sense their gestures toward sound. If lucky, one forms and, like prayer, touches soul. Ever listening, always learning, she follows the poetry.
Iljas Baker
GARDENS
i
on the roof of the minaret
the gnomon’s shadow
tells the time for prayer
and
the muezzin calls the faithful
in the gardens below
doves nightingales and jasmine
have no need of such calculations
yet they too are faithful
ii
don’t complain
that
each day you sweep the leaves
and gather them up to burn
yet daily more leaves fall
like rain
be a servant of the garden
and pray to reach a season
in which no leaves fall
be a servant of the garden
and pray to be
gathered up alive
iii
a time will come
when gardens will be admired
for their gravel and stones
as places
to remember the dead
and their wordly works and loves
as places
to heal hearts and minds
wasted by worldliness
these gardens will not be patterned after
The Garden
man will be at a loss then
without truth
impatient
so
let truth grow
cultivate patience
WHO ARE YOU
begin with bismillah
and recite the salawat
for a blessing on Muhammad
blesses you too
now step into the garden
the birds stop by
to thank you
for watering earth’s stars
and
last night’s gibbous moon
faint in the bright morning sky
sets
as the sun grows warmer
care for beauty here
and let go when beauty fails or fades
take in some flowers
from time to time
and then return them faded to
where they came from
this might help
the faint moon
the warm sun
the flowers
the trees
the birds
and
every breath you take
bless you
Iljas Baker was born in Scotland and now lives in Thailand where he is a retired university professor. His first book of poems Peace Be Upon Us was published by Lote Tree Press in Cambridge UK in 2023. His poems have also appeared in three anthologies, namely The God’s Eye, We Humans, and, most recently, A Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry and in numerous poetry journals. He writes about essential things and his writing is inspired principally by an inclusive, compassionate interpretation of Islam and the practice of the Spiritual Exercise (Latihan Kedjiwaan) of Subud, which originated in Indonesia. He is married with a daughter and a son and two grand-daughters.