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 The Fourth Order of Francis and Clare |
New Poetry
As We Forgive Those 
A circle of war protesters
hold signs and sing
Our Father Who art in Heaven
hallowed be Thy name
in the lobby of the Reuss Federal Plaza
to mourn for those who have lost
Thy kingdom come
thy will be done
or will lose their lives
in the Middle East.
on earth as it is in Heaven.
A small battalion of
police officers descend,
Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
slap handcuffs on the offenders,
take them away,
who trespass against us.
to be booked for
their act of civil disobedience.
For Thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
forever and ever.
Copyright © 2004 Mara Ptacek
About the Author
Mara Ptacek is a Wisconsin poet, pacifist and member of Peace Action, Milwaukee. Mara also creates handmade poetry books and paper sculptures. She was co-editor of the WFOP Poets' Calendar: 2002.
Spear It
It danced me.
From a crawl
To bended knee
And arcing freefall
A stacatto beat
To which I strolled
Then curving to meet
My feminine at a shopping mall.
Chaos is a friend of mine
Heel-tapping and really tall.
Breaking through the thermocline
Of the dark ocean's call.
Dropped from light to stillness
Apex to abyssal, nascent to spatial,
Chrono to Kairal,
Everlasting to terminal,
I love it all
Surreal...
Then there's tomorrow
Bounding away to the breakfast call
Kissed with a song from
my friendly sparrow.
Nature will call in other ways,
Physical needs in their maze.
Terrified I step on stage,
And wonder who I'll be
after the final curtain call.
Copyright © 2003 Bruce Bibee
About the Author
Bruce Bibbe is a Kung Foo Master, Transpersonal Psychologist, and writer. He has just completed a three novel series on the western spiritual warrior tradition and the Knights Templar. Bruce's essays on personal growth and spirituality can be found at www.blogit.com .
Christmas
You who live under the water
and in the great sea
let your coastlands hope
for comfort comes
and there is nothing to fear,
not even yourself.
The one who moves the sea
and sets the waves to sing
and crash about you
finds what is marred
to be beautiful
what is lame to be whole.
Behold
a star in the sky
and in the mirror
the face from which you hide.
Surrender to it
as to the long night
for much is forgiven
in a winter year
when the moose
makes its way
through deep snow
finding life in barren branches
feeding in the arctic cold.
Behold.
Copyright © 2003 Barbara Flaherty
About the Author
Barbara Flaherty is a founding companion of the Fourth Order of Francis and Clare.
Rampaging!
Is that what I'm doing?
Rampaging? Seems as though it is.
But then Babylon was mentioned.
Isn't that in Iraq?
We get filtered pieces of info,
sanitized and censored,
but of course, we can't hide the dead soldiers...
so we get some idea.
The pictures I've seen seem
to be dusted with crusty dry earth.
The desolation of broken down buildings,
houses crumbing like sand,
the children bleak and held apart with vacant eyes,
The rage of men, the deep despair of women.
It all peaks, leaks, sinks into the news,
quickly passed over with George saying,
We will stay to our last man standing.
Fuck the women. This is our country
to give to Haliburton and Bechtel
to rise up, I mean to rebuild now!
It's only a few stragglers
who are ambushing our men
and women, we are in control,
we will control this nation.
The day skies are covered with dark clouds
and soot from burning oil.
The night skies are awash with red billowing clouds
of, you guessed it, burning oil.
Many of our men and women are in the reserves
to get a college education on “Uncle Sam”.
Now they are getting another kind of education
and some graduate to body bags, maimed lives,
psyches destroyed, unimaginable heat,
dust, wind, dirt and basic passions mingle
with the “pushing” and the “playing”
of ancient creational powers, to create
chaos, torture, sick pain, suffering,
threatening terror and outrage.
This then is still the fate of Babylon.
What will be America's fate?
Will we ever be called to account
for these atrocities?
What is to be our consequence?
Are we ridding the world of the terrorists
we put in power in the first place?
And then who are we? What are we?
The chancellors and presidents,
teachers of torture and death
in the School of the Americas.
We train people to terrorize, kill, torture
the weak, the voiceless, the marginalized
all over the world. We are
the Mother Fucking terrorists of all time.
What will we be? A nation alone
with the fucked up world we have made.
Blow by, shut up, be soiled, devastated,
here we will be with no one
to sell our greed to, worse yet, no one to buy it.
Comsumer Heaven or Hell.
Dante said it best, "It's a man's world."
Take note.
Copyright © 2003 Kat Sloan-Krieger
About the Author
Kat Sloan-Krieger, a woman with the call to priesthood, moved her ministry from the Roman Catholic Church to the Faithful Fools Street Ministry in the San Francisco Tenderlion. She is a former chaplain, and parish lay minister. Kat is currently on the Board of Directors of both Tenderloin Education and Reflection Center and the Hospitality House which offers shelter, self help and an art studio. Her ministry concentrates on art and the creative impulse as forms of prayer. She has been married 41 years, is the mother of seven children, twelve grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Loon
In autumn at the cabin
I can hear the loon
in evening shadow call
to its mate on the lake
while the blazing moon
beams a wide path of light.
Then morning filters grey light
through the small, windowed cabin
as the white shape of the moon
fades into a pale silhouette. Loon
glides in silence across the lake
until summoned to nightfall's call.
Sometimes I hear a wolf call
under the shimmering light
spilling across the lake
that rests at the foot of the cabin
door as night loon
drifts quietly under the moon.
A September harvest moon
fills the edge of the horizon. A call
to mate from loon
echoes on halos of golden light
illuminating the walls of the cabin
with refracted ripples from the lake.
The lily pads on this lake
glisten in the warm, brilliance of moon
glow. As I drift to sleep in the cabin,
I hear someone call
me to watch the orange light
pour over the lake exposing loon.
Have you once heard a loon
from across a lake
drifting by the light
of the Harvest moon?
It's a welcome, haunting call.
the only sound in your cabin.
Every night the loon under the moon
sings out its watchful call
to us in the light of our lakeside cabin.
Copyright © 2003Arlene Lidbergh
About the Author
Arlene Lidbergh teaches piano and is a jazz pianist/vocalist with the Basilwood Jazz Quartet. She is currentlly editing the letters of her grandfather, E. F. Harkins, former Boston Record American Editor for 40 years, arts critic, journalist, and author. She is the daughter of New England artist, Charles Clarence Lidbergh, and is researching her parents years in Paris from Fontainebleau School of Arts to Montmarte. Originally from Boston Arlene has lived in Alaska for 33 years.
Berry Pickers
They seldom speak, my Inupiaq wife and her three sisters,
Solid of hips and purpose,
Rapid hands sifting through leaves,
Picking to the rhythm of some ancient tundra dance
Punctuated by the soft sounds of ripe berries
Dropping into birch bark baskets.
Covered in flower-print calicos
They seem like blossoms themselves
As they harvest and move in unison
Amidst patches of blue dotted clusters
Mapped by the collective memories
Of long vanished women reaching back forever
Between the twisting arctic river and looming mountains.
Meanwhile, my three young children
In their store clothes
Move between calico aunties and their mother,
Tasting berries and adding a new generation.
Final Act
Suspended between setting and rising,
The midnight sun shapes timeless shadows,
While mosquitoes like tundra furies swarm
Louder than gathered Eskimos whisper.
Beyond the village a young woman kneels.
She tears her long dark hair
And keens ancient woe beside her brother,
Dried blood upon his chest already black.
Undisturbed mosquitoes settle
Over his now sober face and still hands.
The woman gazes at the airport road
Where the trooper, deus ex machina,
Rifle and bottle in hand, guides her father
Like some old companion to the waiting plane.
Chained to his role,
Her father needs no handcuffs.
From soft-voiced villagers a nurse emerges
To brush clustered mosquitoes from the dead man's face.
Copyright © 2003 Len Anderson
About the Author
After spending almost 15 years living in an Inupiaq Eskimo community in arctic Alaska, Len Anderson now lives in Anchorage. He has written and produced radio, television and print pieces, and poetry. Len is a reporter for KSKA, a public radio station in Anchorage.
Sharon Lee Kufeldt
We, Veterans of our Nations' Wars, Come
March 22-24, 2003
We come to our Nation's Capitol to speak for peace.
We come to tell the truth about war.
We come to reveal the truth about this illegal, immoral war.
We come to speak of deception, manipulation, secret agendas and fascist doctrines.
We come in peace to support our troops by demanding they be brought home out of harms way NOW.
We come in outrage to support our troops by demanding Congress restore the billions of dollars for Veterans they cut from the Veterans Administration budgets, and to increase it to meet the actual needs.
We come in peace to support our troops by demanding the Veterans Administration process backlogged claims.
We come in peace to support our troops by demanding that our government stand responsible and make good on their promises of support to all our veterans of all wars and military service and their families.
We come as elders to act as the conscience of our nation.
We come out of honor and respect for all life.
We come out of compassion born of suffering.
We come to mourn all victims of war.
We mourn our fallen soldiers.
We mourn our missing in action.
We mourn our prisoners of war.
We mourn our wounded.
We mourn our lost innocence.
We mourn that we have killed and wounded others.
We mourn what we experienced, saw, heard, smelled, did, during war.
We mourn our brothers and sisters who have taken their own lives because they could no longer live with the memories.
We mourn those solders we have killed.
We mourn those soldiers we have wounded.
We mourn the innocent women and children and men who have died.
We mourn all innocent women and children and men who have been maimed, injured, traumatized and lost their homes.
We mourn all who are still suffering from radiation and toxic chemicals used by our government to perpetrate violence.
We mourn our Mother Earth for the toxins we have strewn and left that still pollute, land, water, and air.
We mourn the birth defects of our children and their children and all of nature from these toxins.
We mourn that human beings have not learned to co-create rather than control and destroy.
We mourn our country in these dark hours, days, weeks, months and hopefully not years.
We mourn the loss of our constitutional and civil rights to an illegally installed executive branch.
We mourn the loss of true patriotism, which has degenerated to nationalism and militarism.
We mourn the loss of truth.
We come in peace to lobby our representatives in Congress.
We come in peace to take back our freedom to dissent and restore our Bill of Rights.
We come in peace to uphold our oath... “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America
from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
We come in peace to reclaim our government: Of the People, For the People and By the People.
We come in peace as those who love their country enough to question and say “NO MORE WAR, ever.”
Copyright © 2003 Sharon Lee Kufeldt
About the author
Rev. Sharon Lee Kufeldt, Vice President, Veterans For Peace Post #71, served in the United States Army from 1969-1971 This poem was written upon returning from the Washington DC Operation Dire Distress, a rally of United States Veterans in support of peace. WWW.VeteransForPeace.Org
Louis Alemayehu
GRANDMOTHER
to Meridel LeSeur, Etta Furlow, Bea Swanson
Yoooou Grandmother,
Are old and weathered like Mother Earth,
Yoooou Grandmother,
You move slowly, inevitably, like seasons,
Winter is your mantle now,
Royal in your season.
Yoooou Grandmother,
Speak words that rise with the wonder of Eagles.
On your joyful, mighty wings
I flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Into a Sun of possibilities.
Yoooou Grandmother,
Heartwoman,
With the fierceness of Shewolf,
Knows the Land like a Wisewoman knows her body,
and its oneness to the Earth.
Yoooou Grandmother,
Nurture with a potent milk,
Your children stand strong and early,
In a harsh day, in a treacherous night.
Grandmother,
You are a signature to this pact
We have made with Life,
For freedom, for living room, for breathing space,
This, Earth is Home.
You and your children are beams in a bridge of all colors,
I see strong feet on mighty planks,
Crossing over, crossing over,
Some walk, some run,
The groping see, the fallen stand,
Moving on up to brightness and vibrancy,
To a place of sharing and collectivity.
A living world, with living room,
For all those that love Life so much that first,
They want Life for all on this Earth.
For all those that love Life so much that
No man can see himself without seeing his Sister,
No woman can see herself without seeing her Brother,
No human can see them self without seeing the Animal,
without seeing the Water,
without seeing the Wind,
the Trees, the Earth,the light, the spirit, the light, the spirit,
the light,thespiritthelight
THE SPIRITLIGHT.
And aaaaalll see the magic of this Sweet Earth Flying,
and aaalll see the magic of this Sweet Earth, this Sweet Earth,
This sweet, bitter, spinning, blue-green Earth,
This Sweet Earth Flying, Sweet Earth Flying, Sweet Earth Flying through
the Thunderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Copyright © 2003 Louis Alemayehu
SEEDS OF WAR
(Down Here on the Ground)
We are the wise ones,
ordained by an arrogance
that is fashioned by doubt,
hunger,
and the need “to be somebody."
We reason and wound each other
with our sharp reputations,
easing the pain
of being lowly, middle or outside born.
Reckless in our foolishness,
unfree,
untouchable,
Fiendish wall builders are we.
We freeze one another with icy exclusiveness
correct thoughts and theories,
barren of the vegetation of compassion.
We are the most intent of suicides,
disguised as fratricide,
infanticide,
ecooooocide.
We wound each other,
taking sides.
We defend the true religion,
taking sides.
We defend the correct political philosophy,
taking sides.
We defend the superior race, sex and/or class,
taking sides.
With nightmare threats or kindly coos-
(promise them anything),
We drag our children kicking and screaming into burning houses of ideology,
taking sides.
Our "wisdom" becomes their "wisdom"
and those caissons keep rolling along.
What genius of physical science
of social science
delineated the logistics of
taking sides,
(I thought the world was round?)
Men and women
Black, yellow, red, white and brown
rich, poor, in between,
We all burn the same,
Down here on the ground.
Don't talk to me of rights or wrongs,
Justice, Holy Wars or sin,
Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Possession of Peace,
You must be within.
~ ~ ~
Here on the Sorrow Road,
No peace,
No peace,
No peace,
Since I have been here (no peace)
Except in the eyes of the men and women I have loved (no peace)
Except when watching wild birds ballet in the sky (no peace)
Except when Spring creeps across the earth and green hands reach forth
To catch rays of grace ( no peace )
No peace until the powerless are born again as new men & women,
With daughters and sons,
Using the crumbs that life has given them.
Sacredly, Erotically,
Birthing a New Earth,
Whose colors fly together in a New Rainbow,
Remaking the world in the image of justice and spiritual liberation,
In all its colors and textures.
No peace until we create the political/spiritual space to in - joy
Live in the Natural World (no peace)
Except when my body as vibrated with a Green Song
Of hope and determination
A vulnerability to tenderness
And a willingness to care,
My brothers and sisters,
I REJECT DESPAIR!
Oh can't you see it?! Can't you see it?!
As we stare at the sun,
Whose Healing Wings of Fire
Embrace all as one,
While fire becomes our element now.
Yes! This is the fire next time too!
The Ancestors give inspiration now,
Something swells up from a place deep inside now,
Once hollowed by sorrow, now filled with love,
My cup, my cup, my cup runeth over
No enemies, no other.
We observe the creation,
The message is clear,
With blood on the horizon,
It is time to understand,
Act
And set aside our fear.
A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme…
Louis Alemayehu - 1983, 1986, 2001, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Louis Alemayehu
About the author
Louis Alemayehu (AH-LEM-EYE-YU) is a writer, educator, poet, father, grandfather, performer and activist of African and Native American heritage. He has taught poetry, language arts, and has facilitated writer's workshops. His writing has appeared in The Butterfly Tree: An Anthology of Black Minnesota Writers, The Drum: an international journal of writers of color and The International Process Work Journal. His poem, Thrones, was cast in bronze and installed within the Phillips Urban Gateway, an inner city public art installation designed by Rafala Green and the residents of the Powderhorn and Phillips neighborhoods of South Minneapolis. Louis,along with composer/musicians Carei Thomas and David Wright, is a co-founding member of the poetry/jazz ensemble, ANCESTOR ENERGY. The Loft and Intermedia Arts honored Louis' work as a spoken-word artist and creative writer. His studies of Process Work Psychology emphasize the role that art, culture and conflict styles have played in social change. He currently focuses on writing, performing, mentoring, community organizing and organizational development with a vision for the role an artist can play in group process, conflict resolution and the dynamics of individual and group transformation
Phillip A.J Hodgson
MEDITATIONS ON IRAQ
I saw my world die yesterday.
It had been bleeding for ages
And open sores had covered its body for a thousand years or more.
But today it died.
It had struggled to survive for so long
Gasping for air
Drinking poisoned water and aching, shivering occasionally.
It breathes no more.
The sun still shines
But no creature truly notices
As we all hear the screaming silence that means
God has taken his last sad look.
And left us to wonder
What will become of us
Our usefulness as beings has been terrifyingly challenged
Is there hope?
Yes, there is
There truly is
Howl the souls of the present, past and future
Turn and see a dawn approaching.
Never retreat
Never surrender
To the darkest sides of mankind
Pray and remember, like never before
We are all connected to the One.
Dedicated to the people of planet earth and to the glory that is God.
Copyright © 2003 Phillip A.J Hodgson
About the author
Phil is a psychotherapist, men's worker, writer and poet living in Malvern and London, UK. He co-founded the counselling and psychotherapy network, Transpersonal Emergence, for people searching for greater meaning than just planetary existence. His poetry has also been published by UNESCO and the Cygnus Review.
Normandi Ellis
DECLARATION FOR THE PROTESTANTS
I'm no podium pounder
no fist shaking, finger pointing
inflammatory orator
I'm just a woman
who loves the way blue herons float above pools of water in Elkhorn Creek
who loves the sycamores and beach stones, islands of bluebells & blue skies
who loves the way every day
light crawls up the horizon into our laps like a child begging for kisses.
Sign no declarations of war
Slip no notes to generals behind our backs
I fear
it could all disappear. Just like that…
the temple of our bodies and the world
become the ashes of a dead god's dream,
hot wind or cosmic dust blowing infinitely through space
a million years from now…
Or maybe on News at 11 starting tomorrow.
Maybe it won't be that cataclysmic.
Maybe everything will grind to a halt through indifference
podium pounders, squeaky wheels and all.
Maybe grief will turn us into statues with clouded eyes, deaf ears,
icicles instead of words hanging from lips.
For just a moment, imagine
nut meats and good bread,
the skin of tangerines,
strong coffee and muscular poetry.
I want to know what you're willing to risk losing
conversation in cafes, or
exotic things like bells tinkling under goat chins
yellow light wafting through lavender fields,
soft billowy cottons and the scent of saffron in beards
When they bomb Iraq and you quietly press your back
against the seat of your chair
Will you regret the protest you never shouted?
the podium you never pounded?
the "no" that died on your lips?
I'm no fist shaking, finger pointing orator.
I'm just a woman.
Copyright © 2003 Normandi Ellis
Prayer in the Face of War
Everything rests by changing
and so, God, I pray, change me
for I am weary and in need of rest;
my cupped hands can no longer hold up
my tears and prayers.
If it be your will, fill these hands
with seed and let me bury my love
and attention in the dark, calm peace
of your ancient breast.
Everything rests by changing.
The seeds will soften
and reach toward light --
and bud and bloom and seed
and die and return.
Let that be the grace I depend on.
Everything rests by changing
and so, God, I pray,
change me.
Copyright © 2003 Normandi Ellis
About the author
Normandi Ellis is the author of five books of fiction and nonfiction, including translations of the Egyptian Book of the Dead from the ancient hieroglyphs. They are Feasts of Light: Celebrations for the Seasons of Life Based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries; Dreams of Isis: A Woman's Spiritual Sojourn; Voice Forms; Sorrowful Mysteries and Other Stories; Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Jean Houston, Normandi Ellis (Translator) Her stories have appeared in Agni Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Review and other journals. She works as a literary artist in Kentucky middle and elementary schools, in youth at risk programs, and with the elderly. She is a member of the National Association of Poetry Therapy.
Donna Henes
Hope
I am feeling a most urgent obligation
Not to mention suggest or even imagine
Any but the most positive possibilities.
But only project willful wishful thinking.
I know the world is still turning
So there must be a chance for peace.
***
One by one, in tiny increments,
candle by candle, gesture by effort,
wish by prayer, concern by care,
we feed the life-fires of the soul
and light the infinite universe,
little by little from within.
Copyright © 2003 Donna Henes
About the author
Donna Henes is the editor and publisher of the highly acclaimed quarterly, Always In Season: Living In Sync with the Cycles; the author of Moon Watcher's Companion, Celestially Auspicious Occasions: Seasons, Cycles and Celebrations and Dressing Our Wounds In Warm Clothes;and the CD, Reverence To Her: Mythology, The Matriarchy & Me. In 1982, she composed the first (and to this date, the only) satellite peace message in space: "chants for peace * chance for peace." She has offered lectures, workshops, circles, and celebrations worldwide for 30 years. Donna is the director of Mama Donna's Tea Garden & Healing Haven, a ceremonial center, ritual consultancy and spirit shop in Exotic Brooklyn, New York.
Patricia Kelly
Spring Snow Melt
spring snow melt --
young life lost
to "friendly fire"
daffodils bow --
thoughts of
Hiroshima
(written April 6th, Hiroshima Day)
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About the author
Patricia Kelly won first place prizes for her poetry from The Feminist Writers Guild and The Open Center Goddess Festival. Selections of her haiku and other poetry appear online in "Star Leaper" and ”Borders & Time." Patricia has taught creative writing at locations like The Lighthouse (for the blind), enjoys musical improvisation on her didjeridu and kalimba, and reading, studying and collecting Tarot cards.
Copyright © 2003 Patricia Kelly
Elizabeth Cunningham
Announcement of War - Looking for the Lost
When the president announced
he would go to war
I did not listen.
I was looking for a lost cat
and only caught the commentators
their NPR voices subdued and neutral
as if they were dressed in gray.
Then I drank the last of my father's
posthumous gin, two full wineglasses
(not a proper gin tumbler) on ice.
I threw up before I went to sleep.
Well, I had eaten the last of the corn chips
with ersatz onion dip.
I guess I needed to be sick.
This morning when I sat down to pray
all I could see
was my small self crying
in the driveway
left behind by my father.
I told God:
my father never loved me
if he did he wouldn't have
forgotten me
and you don't either
or you would not
have left me here for so long
unheard
you would not have
left all those people
standing in the streets of the world
with their candles
unheard.
Then I saw the children of soldiers
left behind
and children in Iraq
with no parents.
I am mad at you
I said
I wanted a Daddy
and you took him away.
And I let myself cry
for a long time
I coughed and coughed
till my chest hurt.
Then I sat in the sun
and held my own heart.
Copyright © 2003 Elizabeth Cunningham
Seventh Day of the War
Today I do not love anyone
but the animals
the small birds returning to nest
over my door
my cats even though they may
kill the birds
as is their nature.
I love also the waters
following the flow of gravity
to the sea
and the winds circling
even if they are driven now
by excess global heat.
I do not love my kind
including me
except for my children
because I am a mother animal.
No one else.
Today I do not love god
because god has been invoked
too many times
as the god of our wars
our self-righteousness
our hate.
I am not speaking to god today
unless
god is a stream
or a bird.
Copyright © 2003 Elizabeth Cunningham
Making Love During War
A tired menopausal woman
with no sex drive
after a long day
says ok, let's make love
anyway, make love
a prayer for peace.
It has troubled me the last year or two
how to deal with the loss
of ready appetite, the lust to come.
Force myself to focus with fantasy?
Do it just to be nice?
Tonight I ask
more and less of myself
just be present
pray.
I listen to the music
catch the rhythms
attend to the love.
The rest of me opens with my heart.
No tension, no orgasmic rush.
I let be what is
feel the ocean rise and fall
listen to the wind.
I know there are bombs falling
In dreams I have been there
in buildings that shake
tanks rolling through the streets
soldiers searching my house
finding me crouching in a corner
The dreams come back as we rise and fall
breathe out and in
all the horror held in our embrace
and I offer the rhythm
of the ocean, of the wind
of generation and regeneration
as my prayer.
Copyright © 2003 Elizabeth Cunningham
My Faith
This Sunday: March 30, 2003
My faith is dead today
tossed anonymously into a mass grave
with Christians, Muslims, Jews
murdered by each other
in the name of the same
goddamned god.
I don't suppose this is the kind
of poem you had in mind
and me an ordained minister
from a long line of priests.
Still, I am spending my life writing
a gospel I can believe,
one where she is god incarnate, too,
and stands with him outside the tomb,
their bare feet in the cold dew
and the scent of spikenard sharp
in the air.
It is only that imagined dawn
that holds my faith
and the hazelnut
with all the wisdom of the world inside
and the bright explosion
of the mustard seed.
Copyright © 2003 Elizabeth Cunningham
About the author
Elizabeth Cunningham is an ordained interfaith minister, the descendant of nine generations of Episcopal priests. She is the author of four novels and Small Bird, a book of poetry in the great mystic tradition. her latest novel is Daughter of the Shining Isles, Volume I of The Magdalen Trilogy .
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Len Anderson
Tundra Eucharist
She tears a corner
From yesterday's bread
While he pours
A little unscrewed wine
Into their best teacup.
Then to their small table
They invite a third
And feast on love
In their tiny solitary cabin.
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About the Author
After spending almost 15 years living in an Inupiaq Eskimo community in arctic Alaska, Len Anderson now lives in Anchorage. He has written and produced radio, television and print pieces, and poetry.
Copyright © 2003 Len Anderson
