Archive
Owl
by Susie Ghahremani of boygirlparty
Into Great Silence
In the abbey of the Grand Chartreuse
a monk kneels for the seventh time this day,
his lips moving silently,
his spine bent into its usual question.
Because he is the oldest they call him wise,
though sometimes he thinks he knows even less
than when he started.
Sometimes he wonders if this isn’t wisdom.
Outside, the first snowfall covers the mountains.
Blank and absolute
it offers itself to the mountain creatures,
it offers itself to their sure-footed hunger.
It offers them hunger.
La Nostalgie
The rain was soft the soil was warm
that summer of long skirts in batiked peony
fringed and wrapped round easy hips, and shifts
of sherbet yellow, mirror sprinkled all the way from India.
The rain was soft and sweet the soil was warm and rich
when we went barefoot and patchouli oiled
to gather rain spoiled roses and the flimsied heads
of everlasting flowers, silver membranes from thin honesty.
The rain was soft and sweet and fine, the soil was warm and rich and dark
when broom pods split and rattled out their seeds
between our tattooed toes, and rowan leaves caught
in our crowns of coiled and braided hair.
The rain was soft the soil was warm, that summer of long skirts.
by Susan Utting
Couturier
Blue back of jay
scissors air, cuts
across hemlock,
pattern dressing
the day.
by Todd Davis
Night comes in
Late evening.
I step outside.
At first the dark
means nothing
but conclusion.
Then the pocked
light of a few stars
and a sliver of moon,
creamy but tart, like
apple sliced, and
through trees
a fragrance of bells.
by Dick Jones of the Patteran Pages
qarrtsiluni 