A Tidings of Magpies

by Jennifer Grotz At its most dull before dawn, the sea's a stubble field of light still covered with the moony film pink dawn sponges away. This is the hour when the moon is a fishhook steadily pulled up out of the liquid sky into some drier realm. And the doves dart and crisscross as if bustling to take their places on stage, which does nothing to change that this is the hour one laughs least. The hour of cold floors, of pupils adjusting in the early light. The hour waiting begins for something one recognizes only after it's passed. So while the blue of the sea blends with the horizon I ask to understand the difference between silence and indifference. I ask time to be wise as an editor, not to elide this hour when bakeries pile loaves in the glass cases and cafés reassemble their tables and chairs, hour that converts night's regret back into gratitude, beautiful hour when the last few fishing boats sneak out of harbor to retrieve the nets that wait at the bottom of the s...

So sorry I've been quiet lately, but...aaaaaahhhhhhh...spring break. Two very special and lovely words. I spent mine doing work my Occ. Health Workshop instructor told me on Friday at 4:50pm he wanted done by this week and sorry that he couldn't help at all, but he would be on vacation. I spent Monday attempting the impossible. Tuesday I worked at the hospital and then I spent three days out of town at a hearing conservation course. And..., I worked at the hospital some more. Tomorrow's my day of vacation and I won't tell you what my to-do list looks like. Right now all I want to do is not wake up to an alarm in the morning. And the weather reports of 1-3 inches of snow overnight?? Bring. It. On. More reason not to get off the couch while I listen to my new favorite radio program Lost and Found . "The best music you've never heard." Lenten Dissent by Cherie Lashway There once was a logger, named Paddy O'Connell, Who at lunch during Lent, found himsel...

The Soul Bone by Susan Wood Once I said I didn't have a spiritual bone in my body and meant by that I didn't want to think of death, as though any bone in us could escape it. Maybe I was afraid of what I couldn't know for certain, a thud like the slamming of a coffin lid, as final and inexplicable as that. What was the soul anyway, I wondered, but a homonym for loneliness? Now, in late middle age, or more, I like to imagine it, the spirit, the soul bone, as though it were hidden somewhere inside my body, white as a tooth that falls from a child's mouth, a dove, the cloud it can fly through. Like bones, it persists. Little knot of self, stubborn as wildflowers in a Chilmark field in autumn, the white ones they call boneset, for healing, or the others, pearly everlasting. The rabbis of the Midrash believed in the bone and called it the luz, just like the Spanish word for light, the size of a chickpea or an almond, depending on which rabbi was telling the story, found, th...

by Ann Hudson It's a wild March morning in Chicago, the wind dragging its nets through the streets. Trawling for its usual and plentiful treasures: crushed styrofoam cups, torn newspapers, lost gloves, a blizzard of fast food napkins. I take my eight-year-old Toyota through the car wash. Idling in neutral, I ease past the powerful, shaggy brushes, the nozzles spraying limp foam onto the hood, and remember the sick excitement I felt when my father took my sisters and me through, all the windows of our '67 baby blue Valiant tightly cranked, the antenna pushed into its sleeve, our doors locked against who-knows-what, the three of us with our identical haircuts buckled into the back seat, our identical shoes drumming the vinyl. I was sure those huge blue brushes would crash right through the windshield and pin us to our seats. At eight, a child sure of impending danger this was about all the thrill I could handle. I pull out of the car wash into the tangle of traffic, past the bars...

Prayer for Our Daughters by Mark Jarman May they never be lonely at parties Or wait for mail from people they haven't written Or still in middle age ask God for favors Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden. May hatred be like a habit they never developed And can't see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking. If they forget themselves, may it be in music Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking. May they enter the coming century Like swans under a bridge into enchantment And take with them enough of this century To assure their grandchildren it really happened. May they find a place to love, without nostalgia For some place else that they can never go back to. And may they find themselves, as we have found them, Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to. May they be themselves, long after we've stopped watching. May they return from every kind of suffering (Except the last, which doesn't bear repeating) And be the...

by Irene McKinney None of this is personal, not the way you'd think. The moon keeps on traveling and I can see it from my balcony each night and each night different but it's not my own, not like we want things to be our very own. But it sways me nevertheless and stands in for certain losses and gains and for even that much I'm grateful. I stand at the back door and stare. please note: photo by stephanie anderson ladd from owlandcrow

One thing I love most about Sundays is being able to watch CBS Sunday Morning and getting the thoughtful and humane perspective of the world's events spoken by a quiet man in a bowtie. And, as in life, there's usually a dollop of humor, music, and art thrown in. I haven't been glued to the news trying to follow the tsunami recovery and analysis. It's just too horrific. Interesting, if one can simply think about the science behind earthquakes and what happens to the earth's floor, and interesting to hear the thinking behind salvaging the nuclear reactor and burning oil refinery. But the photos of those cars and boats and planes washed up on real homes that resemble Monopoly game tokens? Horrific beyond my imagination. I'm on "spring break" for two weeks, which means I'm not squeezing class work into my work and home duties--and home by the way has gotten the short end of that stick. It will take me two weeks to get through the piles of Things To No...

by Dylan Thomas And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, they shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. Under the windings of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall no break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shan't crack; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. No more may gulls cry at their ears Or waves break loud on the seashores; Where blew a flower may a flower no more Lift its head to the blows of the rain; Though they be mad and dead as nails, Heads of the characters hammer t...

by Eric Ormsby This was the feeling that the dark rain gave on school days when the windows of the bus dimmed with all our breath and we pressed close in jostling slickers, knowing the pleasure of being a body with other bodies, we children a flotilla of little ducks, paddling together on the wet ride to the schoolhouse door. Once there, we peered outside appraisingly, beyond the windows and the balustrades to where the rain came down outrageously and made the trees and signposts and the light at the intersection swoop and toss and fizz with gritty torrents to the curb. That steamy, tar-damp smell of morning rain, its secret smokiness upon our mouths, surprised us with some sorrow of nostalgia. Our past already had such distances! Already in that fragrance we could sense the end of childhood, where remembrance stands. And when thunder pummeled the embrittled clouds — concussive ricochets that made the teacher hover with the chalk held in her hand — we saw the lighting lace the school...

"here comes another grey morning, a not so good morning after all, She says, well what am I to do today, with so much time..." The kind of morning when it's probably best to stay curled up in the covers with a big old tom cat at the foot of the bed. But, groceries don't buy themselves and errands must get done. I just hate driving around town when it's rainy and misty and cold. Yesterday took a bit out of me, mostly because work began calling at 5am to beg anyone and everyone to come in and help--they were two nurses short. I had brain lab though and that was already scheduled. So, I helped out a bit before and about three and a half hours after till things seemed to have righted themselves a bit and Pat was coming in extra for the afternoon shift. HoneyHaired and I wanted desperately to see the Illustionist, but it's at a neighboring theater and we couldn't make it there by 3:00. As for Brain Lab--it is not for the faint-of-heart. I was told "heads ...

Going to "Brain Lab" this morning to learn anatomy the good, old fashioned way. If you never hear from me again you'll know I'm still scrubbing the sights from my eyes...

by Jonathan Potter You are a warm front that moved in from the north, a blind spot bearing beautiful gifts, a garden in the air, a golden filament inscribed with the name of God's hunting dog, a magic heirloom mistaken for a feather duster, a fountain in a cow pasture, an anachronistic anagram annoyed by anonymity, a dollar in the pocket of a winter coat in summer. And I am the discoverer of you. please note: photo by Kunal Bhattacharya