TheGriffin2012

the

2012

Griffin

the

Griffin

2012

The Griffin

Editor:

Donna M. Allego

Co-Editors: Cassie Towler, Justin Boyer, Amina Floyd-Murphy, Roshena Berndlmaier, and Ashley Scheiber Production:

Donna Smyrl

Design:

Donna Smyrl

Mission Statement

The Griffin is a literary journal sponsored by Gwynedd-Mercy College. Its mission is to enrich society by nurturing and promoting creative writing that demonstrates a unique and intelligent voice. We seek writing which accurately embodies or reflects the human condition with all its intellectual, emotional and ethical challenges. Like the mythical griffin, a constructed creature of fearless strength and courage, we prefer formed works rather than experimental ones.

Manuscripts of literary works – poetry, short stories, short plays, reflections – are accepted for consideration for publication throughout the year.

Copyright 2012 by Gwynedd-Mercy College.

ii

Foreword

Donna M. Allego Editor

With the wheel of life completing another turn, it is time for the 2012 Griffin to honor writings and images that help us understand the human experience. Join our authors, photographers, and painters who share their insights about a meaningful human life, some of them deeply reflective and others more jovial.

I am grateful to all of our professional and Gwynedd-Mercy College student contributors. I also offer deep hearted thanks to the professors who encouraged the students to submit their work.

I also want to acknowledge the fine editorial work of Cassie Towler whom we are losing to graduation. I have known her as a student, an advisee, and an editor. For the past two years Cassie has faithfully served as a Griffin editor, and the entire staff wishes her a good journey in life. The 2012 edition is dedicated to her.

iii

Editor’s Archives

We Remember: The Griffin evolved from an earlier publication, the Seed.

Recently, the college received a contribution from the mother of one of the Seed’s staff, Janet Richards, who died in 1974. She was a dedicated student who, although paralyzed from the neck down, took oral exams, and as her mother writes “tapped on a typewriter with a stick attached to her head completing homework assignments.” One of Janet’s former professors, Dr. Carol Breslin, remarked that Janet was “brilliant” and “when she was in class, you forgot she was in a wheelchair.” Janet’s presence on the Seed was so welcome that the staff dedicated the 1975 edition to her. Janet wrote the following poem about her grandmother’s farm in 1974:

This farm scene looks familiar, and indeed it is When mind’s eye glimpses childish forms flitting midst the trees....

A Huddled group crouched by the shed “Sardines”comes flashing through my head,

A ring of silly poses means “salt and pepper” play,

The mirthful meadow picnics among the daisies gay

And rambling woodland walks,

The cooling, knee-deep, tranquil pools where slipp’ry tadpoles streak,

The barn-bridge sledding – the frost-bitten toes,

The cozy warmth of cud-chewing cows inside the friendly barn...

This scene now so familiar has such enduring charm That Time nor Season can erase fond mem’ries of the Farm We Welcome: Kiera Elizabeth Kim who was born on March 29, 2012. She is the beloved daughter of Emera (Wilson) and Duk Kim and the niece of Willow (Wilson) DiPasquale. Emera and Willow were editors for the 2009 Griffin.

iv

Table of Contents

Forward.................................................................................................. iii Childhood

Pink Flower Alexandria Gurko*.......................................................... 11

Natalie Connie Wrzesniewski**........................................................... 12

Imaginary Playmate Joanne Weck....................................................... 13

Schwinn Susan Duncan....................................................................... 18

Speaking King Tut Lucy Saeger........................................................... 19

Fallen Star Camille Stranger................................................................ 22

Elegy for Kurt Cobain, Ten Years Later Hannah Selinger.................... 23

Sunset at Ocean City Michael Prykowski*........................................... 24

Self

Against the Wind Tom Graham.......................................................... 26

I Am Joe Mignone*............................................................................. 30

The Floating World Rick McKenzie..................................................... 31

I Am Vicki Clark*............................................................................... 32

Cascading Water John Furphy*........................................................... 33

Self-Portrait Vivian Lawry................................................................... 34

Empty Bottles Hayley Gibson*........................................................... 39

I Am Caitlin Weniger*........................................................................ 40

From Two Hope Slaughter.................................................................. 41

v

Relationships

To Adele Dan Miller*......................................................................... 43

It’s Time Stephanie Hubbard*............................................................. 44

A Man and His Best Friend Katharine Starrantino*............................ 45

The House on Narcissus Street Lisa L. Leibow................................... 49

Home Dinner Stanley Morris Noah..................................................... 52

The Ford Granada Brian Huba........................................................... 53

One Night Stand Fred Yannantuono................................................... 59

Valentine’s Day Joan Gelfand............................................................. 60

The Train Katherine Pierzga*.............................................................. 61

After a Master Project/Van Gogh Katherine Coughlin*....................... 62

Outside the Theater Jed Myers............................................................ 63

October Rain Hope Slaughter............................................................. 64

Mooring, Barnegat Light Laurie Sewall.............................................. 65

Pentimento Robert Rothman............................................................... 66

It Was Jed Myers................................................................................. 67

How Can I Tell Her Hope Slaughter................................................... 68

Wallow Debra Nicholson.................................................................... 69

If You Were She Alan Meyrowitz......................................................... 71

Rusty Bridge Alexandria Gurko*......................................................... 72

Comedy

The Lamb Bash Carolyn Light Bell..................................................... 74

Rock Garden Zen Elizabeth Elfring.................................................... 80

vi

Nature

Cherry Springs State Park Michael Prykowski*................................... 82

The History of Clouds, Traveling Stanley Morris Noah...................... 83

Watching Chickens Run Catherine McGuire....................................... 84

You See Your Children Susan G. Duncan............................................ 85

Norwegian and Ponderosa Pines Tim Williams................................... 86

Dead Bat in a Bottle J. Richard McLaughlin........................................ 87

Aspen Grove Chorales Tim Williams.................................................. 88

Relentless Changes Tim Williams........................................................ 89

Snail Sandy Anderson.......................................................................... 90

The Land of Little Rain James M. Moose............................................ 91

The Birdwatcher Alan Meyrowitz....................................................... 92

Wooden Bridge John Furphy*............................................................. 93

Memories

My Story is All I Have Chuck Tripi..................................................... 95

One Day Every Day Tim Williams...................................................... 96

Dublin Pilgrimage: Bringing Mercy into Focus Beth Harrison*.............................................................................. 97

Homage to a Junkyard Elizabeth Elfring........................................... 103

Candles Alysha Munsey*................................................................... 104

Death

The Wreck John Grey....................................................................... 106

The Queen of Hearts Janice Alonso.................................................. 107

Quantum Death: Chapter 1 Justin Boyer*........................................ 111 vii

Dawn from Muhlenberg Brigade Mike Prykowski*........................... 117

On Bart’s Choice: Note to Self Stephanie deLusé.............................. 118

When Something’s Taken Robert Rothman....................................... 120

Spirituality

Light on Spirituality Amy Kolb*....................................................... 121

The O’Malley Henry G. Miller......................................................... 122

Plans Ashley Scheiber*...................................................................... 127

Through the Trees... Michael Prykowski*.......................................... 128

The Dark Night of the Soul Justin Boyer*........................................ 129

Magic/Supernatural

The Key Hayley Gibson*.................................................................. 134

Grim Fairy Tales S. Paul Bowen........................................................ 135

Dawn Over Varnum’s Headquarters Michael Prykowski*................. 141

Alone Robert Davis........................................................................... 142

Art, Music, and Communication

Transmission Rick McKenzie............................................................. 146

Billy Dianne M. Buxton.................................................................... 147

White Flowers Hayley Gibson*........................................................ 148

Virginia At Dusk Plynn Gutman....................................................... 149

Steinbeck Wrote in Pencil Barbara Tramonte..................................... 150

Creating New Visions

Peace Cathryn Ferrari*...................................................................... 152

The Women of Sparta Kelly Ruegner and Jake Jasinski...................... 153

Income and Happiness Katie Starrantino*........................................ 158 viii

Interview with Doris and Roger Sinclair Erika Harris*..................... 162

Prothero/Islam Paper Megan DeLany*.............................................. 166

No Words for the Wise or Words for a Wise Few? Paul Loafman*............................................................................ 168

Fall Leaves John Furphy*.................................................................. 174

Notes on Contributors.................................................................. 172

* denotes Gwynedd-Mercy College student ** denotes Gwynedd-Mercy College alum

ix

Childhood

Pink Flower

Alexandria Gurko

«11»

Natalie

C. Wrzesniewski

I think of you now and then remembering the marble steps that led to the inside of that delightful sanctuary, your mother's candy store.

Maxine, your older sister, had the freedom to choose whatever she wanted from those old glass cases with the doilies on the shelves beneath the candy dishes.

But, too young to touch, we could only hope that some day we would be big enough to pluck a piece of chocolate from one of the crystal dishes.

For the moment, the best we could do, was to press our noses and hands to the outside window and dream, only to be rewarded by your mother's scowl for smudging it.

I can still hear the tinkling bell each time the door opened and closed. The customers would smile to us and sometimes share their chocolate in a hasty moment of guilt as they left.

I hope you think of me, too, your friend six doors down the street who still cherishes those childhood days of friendship that we shared when we were only kids.

ÂŤ12Âť

Imaginary Playmate Joanne Weck

Aunt Mattie snatched the photo from my hand and stuck it into her apron pocket before I got a good look at it.

"Wait a minute! Isn't that me? Who's that little girl I'm holding onto?"

"It isn't you."

"Who is it?"

"Uh, my kids. Sarah and Callie."

"Can I see it?"

We were sitting in her old-fashioned parlor with the fragrance of applewood wafting from the fireplace, going through a tin box of Grandpa's old documents. There were bundles of important-looking papers spread out over the low coffee table. I was searching for the title to the ancient Ford he'd bequeathed me at his death several months before. Grandpa had lived with Aunt Mattie in the farmhouse until his death at 92. A few other photos had turned up among his papers, mostly sepia-toned prints of him as a young man or with family groups of him and my grandmother with my aunts as children.

Aunt Mattie thrust a manila envelope stuffed with dog-eared sheets at me, nearly knocking over my tall glass of iced tea. "Here, look through these," she commanded.

I knew she was trying to distract me, but it was unlike her to be indirect. I searched her deeply lined face for a clue. She was nearly I2 years older than Mom and had several grandkids older than me. My favorite was Robert, a tall, good-looking athlete, already in his second year at Lehigh University, where I'd be starting my freshman year in a few days. He'd promised to be my protector when I arrived. "I'm gonna be fighting those fraternity guys off you with a baseball bat," he'd said, winking and making me blush. I'd been a plain child, late in blooming, but in the previous two years my figure had begun to draw glances not only from guys my age, but even grown men.

My father's drinking and hair-trigger temper and my mother's periodic depressions had not created an ideal childhood for me. I was happy to be escaping to Lehigh, a three-hour drive from home.

Aunt Mattie's lank hair was completely white, drawn back into a long braid that hung down her back. When I was younger, I'd thought she ÂŤ13Âť

was Grandpa's wife because to me she'd always looked as old as he did, while her husband, Uncle Clark, seemed almost like one of the grown-up children with his dark hair and muscular body.

"Please, let me see that picture," I begged.

She continued sifting through the papers as though she hadn't heard me, but her faded blue eyes evaded mine. After a few minutes I got up from my chair and slipped my arms around her shoulders, then darted one hand into her apron pocket. I'd grabbed the picture and stepped away from her before she could stop me.

I caught a glimpse of two names written on the back, in ink, in my mother's careful handwriting: Lulu and Serena, I996. I turned it around even as Aunt Mattie tried to snatch it back. Two little girls were sitting together on the steps of a wide porch. The taller one was me at about three; I was certain of that. I recognized the fat pink cheeks, the blue eyes, and silken strands of blond hair, but who was Serena? She was dark-eyed and had spiky black curls and the large head of a baby bird.

"I knew it was me!" I announced, studying the details. We were dressed in light clothing, I in a white ruffled dress, and the other girl in a pink one. It had been taken in summer, with flowerpots full of geraniums behind us on the unfamiliar porch. "Who's Serena?" I asked. "That's the name I used to call my imaginary playmate! Serena!"

"Oh, I think she was a neighbor's kid. The daughter of someone your parents knew back in Virginia." I was aware of something nervous, even furtive, in Aunt Mattie's manner as she stood up and began clearing away the pitcher and glasses with her knobbed, arthritic hands.

"Why didn't you want me to see it?"

"I was just teasing you." Aunt Mattie's smile, revealing perfect dentures, seemed forced. There was something disconcerting about that row of Chiclets in her weathered face. She was, like my mother, of a serious temperament, given to depressions that dragged her down, especially during the winter months, or when my father had been on a mean drunk.

"Serena was so real to me," I said. "I played with her every day, having adventures in the backyard or making tea parties in my bedroom until I was six or seven."

"Really? Your mom knew that?"

"Well, yes." I was recalling how it had distressed Mom when she heard me talking to my imaginary friend, and how I'd learned to keep Serena and our games a secret until she gradually faded away. "It really bothered her. I wonder why."

"She thought too much imagination wasn't good for a child, I guess."

I was still studying the picture. "This girl looks nothing like my Serena. I think my Serena looked like me, only smaller." Another memory was slowly sifting back to my mind, a recurring nightmare that involved ÂŤ14Âť

someone taking my friend away from me. "I used to even dream about her," I said.

Aunt Mattie snatched the photo from my hands and, with a quick motion, tore it in half and tossed the pieces into the fireplace, where it was quickly devoured by the flames.

"Why did you do that?" I was mystified and more than a little annoyed.

"All the bad memories gone! Why keep it? It had a tear in it anyway." She paused for a moment, then exclaimed, "Oh, here it is!"

I thought she'd found another photo, but instead she reached into the box and with an air of triumph pulled out the car title.

Later, when I was leaving, I gave her a hug and felt her thin frame, stiff and hard as the slats of a ladder. Her face took on a strange expression—half embarrassment, half fear, it seemed—and she said in a strangled voice, "No need to mention that old picture to your mom, okay?"

I nodded, but drove away bewildered. During the 20-minute drive back home, my mind raced. There was more to the picture than Aunt Mattie was admitting. I felt as if I'd grasped one tiny strand of a spider's web, and that if! tugged at it, the whole web might unravel. It felt that sticky and poisonous, too, somehow connected with my mother's dark moods and my father's drinking.

I'd been four when we moved from Virginia to the hills of Pennsylvania, not far from where my mother had grown up. My memories of the move were cloudy. I recalled sitting in the front seat next to her; she was crying as she drove, knowing that my father was following us with our furniture piled up in a big truck. I, too, was upset because it seemed that I was leaving Serena behind. I sorted through my watery memories and recalled looking out through the rain-swept window, sobbing for her, certain my playmate had been forgotten in our old house.

But she'd been waiting for me when we reached our new home. The place had seemed smaller and more crowded than the one we left, and my mother had slipped into her darkest period of depression and withdrawal, but I'd had my friend to comfort me. No wonder I escaped into fantasies, I thought.

Had I named my imaginary playmate after the little neighbor girl I had left behind? Still, my clearest memories of Serena had all occurred at the new house, the two of us crawling through the rhododendron bushes and whispering together under the duvet in my big canopied bed.

Despite her warning, and wondering what it was that had disturbed Aunt Mattie about the photo, I decided to ask my mother if she remembered Serena, either the neighbor girl or my imaginary friend, and why she had disapproved of my fantasy.

«15»

When I got home I found her in my room, hair covered with a blue scarf, sorting through my closet on one of her cleaning frenzies. There were stacks of clothing on the bed, dresser, and chairs, and she was filling cardboard boxes; my large suitcase, the only one I planned to take to college with me, lay open on the bed.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, burning with resentment at the intrusion. "I said I'd pack for myself!" Then I saw that her blue eyes were shiny with tears, and she looked suddenly older and more tired than I'd ever seen her. I swallowed my anger and plopped down on the bed amid the piles of sweaters, lingerie, and shoes.

"Mom, do you remember Serena?"

She recoiled, as though I had slapped her face, which had gone suddenly pale. "W-What?" she stammered. "What? No, I don't remember any Serena. Why would you ask me that?"

"No reason," I muttered, frightened by the look of panic in her eyes.

We were a family of vast silences, dark moods, and unspoken fears. Things would be different when I left home, I thought.

However, once settled into college life, despite or perhaps because of the distractions of classes, new friends, and three roommates from disparate backgrounds, I found to my surprise that Serena had returned.

She came in vivid dreams that turned into nightmares. Sometimes, coming into my dorm room, I had a sense that she had just slipped out through the second-floor window. Afraid I might be losing my mind, one night I confided my fantasies to Kelly, a roommate, when we'd both had a little too much to drink.

"Why don't you look her up on the Internet?" she suggested.

"Under what?" I laughed. "Imaginary playmates? Besides, if she was a neighbor, I don't even know her last name."

But she'd given me an idea. I knew the name of the town in Virginia where we'd lived, and I could figure out when we'd left. Information about the small town of Martinsville came up readily-and on impulse, I typed in my own name.

To my surprise, headlines from several newspaper articles dating back to the year 1996 popped up. I felt horribly confused, yet somehow also elated as I read: CHILD DIES UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES, TODDLER CONSIGNED TO SOCIAL SERVICES WHILE DEATH OF SISTER IS INVESTIGATED. And then: FOURYEAR-OLD RETURNED TO PARENTS. DEATH OF SISTER RULED ACCIDENTAL.

I printed out the articles and devoured them. A child, Serena Bauman, had fallen down a flight of stairs and died of a brain concussion.

There was an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the accident, during which time the older sister had been ÂŤ16Âť

separated from, and then returned to, her parents. Me! And Serena! My little sister! My imaginary playmate! So much hidden! So much explained!

I clutched my newfound knowledge against my heart like plunder from an archeological dig. I wandered around the campus in a haze. My dreams of Serena became more intense and then slowly dissipated.

I didn't return home until the Thanksgiving holidays, customarily celebrated at Aunt Mattie's in the old farmhouse. We were 15 gathered around the table, Aunt Mattie and Uncle Clark at either end; their three children, Sarah, Callie, and Clark Jr., and spouses; assorted grandchildren, including Robert; my mother, father, and me, all nearly satiated from too much turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and coffee, when my father, inebriated as usual, began holding forth on his favorite topic-politics.

When Robert had the courage to contradict one of his pronouncements, my father turned a livid face toward him. "You little shit!" he slurred, rising from his seat. "What do you know? You're not even dry behind the ears."

"Calm down, Uncle Charlie," my cousin suggested in even tones.

"Don't take it personally. I think you've had a little too much to drink."

This only incensed my father, who staggered from his chair and headed toward our end of the table, cursing.

"I could break your skinny neck with one hand!" he growled.

Every holiday, for as long as I could remember, had been spoiled by my father's scenes. Rage churned in my stomach, ready to explode. I stood up and stepped between them, staring at his ugly face, the red-veined nose, the bloodshot eyes, and somewhere found the courage to spew out the words, "Like you broke my sister's neck? Are you going to knock him down the stairs, too, like you did Serena?"

I heard a collective gasp, and then a deadly hush fell over the table.

My father stood reeling, stopped in his tracks, his face almost sober. When he spoke, saliva flew from his mouth, and a few droplets spattered my cheeks. "No, not me, little girl. Not me. You were the one who knocked your sister down the stairs. But they couldn't prosecute a four-year-old for murder, now, could they?" He dropped heavily into my seat and put his head in his hands.

I looked around the table, and the guilty faces of my family revealed what they all had known, that I was the only one who had been living in the dark. I felt a burning sensation in my chest. My heart thumped and my vision blurred. I thought I might faint, but instead turned and ran from the room.

THE END ÂŤ17Âť

Schwinn

Susan G. Duncan

think myself back to three-quarter fingers wrapped around handlebars pink snapping tassels patty-cake patter get going go faster blister-hot blacktop glitter and chrome saddle shoes pumping faster and faster keep going keep going to the end of the block to the end of the street where stiles cross barbed fences keep cows from our picnics keep blacks from our picnics keep moving get moving my best friend Betsy has homework she shows me 3 nuns plus 5 nuns make 8 and she crayons so neat and keeps in the lines but I keep on going and I have a crush on Betsy'S big brother Jimmy next door beats up on his sister Mama's best friend met only 2 Protestants Mama she said she never knew a Jew. Summers seem shorter now.

Fences seem higher.

Betsy got married, moved to Saint Louis.

To no one's surprise, Jimmy's in prison.

His dad's still drinking, can't seem to stop it.

And I just kept going. ÂŤ18Âť

Speaking King Tut Lucy Saeger

My body lay on its stomach in bed while my mind swung through the African jungle with Tarzan. I'd read Tarzan of the Apes almost to tatters, and I wanted new Tarzan adventures, but the Hobart library didn't carry trash. Just as Tarzan and I discovered the mysterious cabin in the woods, a bell rang out. I tried to ignore the sound, but the jungle faded into my bedroom, and Mama called me down to breakfast. I threw on shirt and shorts and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Instead of jungle fruits, Mama had fixed prunes and oatmeal for Papa. For me and my brother Mike, she poached eggs. When my slice of homemade bread stuck in the toaster, I scraped off the burned edge and ate it anyway. Maybe if I was good enough, Mama would let me go back to my room. I ate the last bite of egg, said, "Excuse me, please," and pushed back my chair. Just as I reached the kitchen door, Mama swung around.

"Outside," she said. There was no use arguing-it hadn't worked yesterday or the day before. While I dragged my feet toward the back door, my little sisters trooped in, herded by Leta, their nurse. She smirked at me.

"Better be careful, Lucy, sulling up. The wind might change, and your face would freeze that way." She cackled with evil laughter. I hurried out the door and sat on the back stoop, staring at the brittle yellow grass.

Water was rationed, like many things in wartime; green grass and washed cars were the signs of a traitor.

Sweltering on the porch, I missed the cool Minnesota woods of last summer. I was not sulking, but I could picture my sisters playing in front of the evaporative cooler. My last-summer shirt and shorts were too snug for comfort, and besides, I could feel my pale skin turning red. Mama would be sorry when I had a heat stroke.

Oh, I should have let my darling daughter stay inside and read, she'd think, but it would be too late.

A slightly chubby child with dark sausage curls came walking across Randlett Street. "I'm Judy Banks," she called from our sidewalk. "You're Lucy. You don't get to go to camp this summer."

"I don't care," I said. I didn't even wonder how she knew. The Hobart jungle drum system was super-efficient at spreading gossip.

Everybody knew everything. Judy crunched across our lawn.

"Do you want to come over to my house?" she said.

I hesitated. I had heard her mother was very strict; and besides that, Judy was younger than me. But I was lonesome, so I nodded. ÂŤ19Âť

"What shall we play?" she said.

I remembered the King Tut language in Home Sweet Homicide, a Pocket Book I'd bought at school. Once a month you could buy a book for your very own.

"Let's play here," I said and ran upstairs to get my book. Eager for someone to speak King Tut with, I taught it to Judy. King Tut language was simple once you had the key. Each word was spelled out, with different sounds for the letters. Can was cash-ay-nun, you was yum-oh-you, and so on. It took a long time to say anything, so I streamlined the alphabet, leaving off the "gug" after each vowel so we could talk faster. Judy took several days to memorize the rules, but pretty soon she understood, when I spoke slowly, and talked a little herself. Then she got nervous.

"I'm afraid my mother won't like my learning a foreign language."

She looked scared.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her. We just won't talk it around grown-ups." I couldn't teach her inside my house anyway, because my ratty little brother Mike hid around comers to eavesdrop, so we practiced on my back porch every morning before the heat turned up to "broil." Mama was pleased I was getting some fresh air, playing outside the way a child was supposed to.

Judy was a good student, and soon we were ready for showtime.

One morning when she came over, Mike was playing in the yard. I waved hello to Judy.

"Cash-a-nun yum-oh-you shush-puppy-a-kuk kuk-ay-nun-gug tutyou-tut?" I said.

"Yummy-shush, aye cash-a-nun shush-puppy-a-kuk kuk-aye-nun-gug tut-you-tut," she answered.

Mike's eyes went big and round. Hah! He was baffled, like I'd been

by Pig Latin, and he had no big cousin handy to help him solve the mystery.

I could torture him for weeks, for months. I felt a happy surge of power.

"What did you say?" he asked. I just smiled. "Tell me what you said or I'm going to tell Mama," he whined.

"Oh, go jump in the lake and swallow a snake and come up with a bellyache. Judy and I were just practicing our new language. You're too young to understand."

Mike ran in the house. Then Judy's mother called her, and she had to go home. When I went inside, Mama stood at the stove, busy cooking.

"Lucy, you mustn't tease your little brother," Mama said. She pulled out the breadboard.

"Oh, no," I said. Luckily she was involved with her pie crust and didn't question me.

The next day I crossed the street to Judy's house. She wanted to be Egyptian, to suit the King Tut language. Her mother was downtown, so ÂŤ20Âť

Judy said we should grind up some red bricks to make powder and color our skin red so we'd look more real. I told her red skin was Indians, but she said it was the same thing. Scraping powder from the brick was hard work.

Our hands got so sore we had to quit before we made enough red powder for both of us.

"You can have this," I said. "It was your idea. We'll make some for me tomorrow." I was proud of myself for being so generous to a younger child.

Judy was really pleased. She rubbed the brick powder all over her face and had some left for her arms. As soon as she finished, her mother pulled into the drive.

"What are you girls doing?" Mrs. Banks screeched. "Get in the house this minute, Judy Banks! And you!" Rays of anger shot out of her eyes and hit me. "Go home!" My stomach dropped like it did in the elevators in Oklahoma City. Mrs. Banks was scary. Judy scurried into her house, and I ran home.

The next morning when I worked up my nerve and started out the back door, ready to cross the street to Judy's house, Mama stopped me.

"No, you can't play with Judy anymore. Mrs. Banks is furious. That poor child broke out in a terrible rash, and it was all your fault for teaching her heathen games. I don't understand you. What is the matter with you, Lucy?"

I didn't say anything, even though the brick powder was Judy's idea.

I didn't want to get her in worse trouble, specially since her mother had looked so fierce. Anyway, I knew what was the matter. Before, I'd thought I had a camp jinx, but it was turning out to be a summer jinx instead. Too bad I'd thrown out that rabbit's foot I got one Christmas—it was so horrid, with its big dead toenails, I couldn't stand to touch it. I kept it for a while, hidden in a drawer, but I knew it was in there. When I got rid of it that June, I started my run of summer bad luck. That must be where I went wrong, since I definitely hadn't broken any mirrors. I only hoped this jinx wouldn't last for seven summers! Sometime surely this summer would end and school would start. I could hardly wait. Mama scolded on for a while, but I tried not to hear. She finally shook her head and let me escape to my room and Tarzan.

To top off my summer bad luck, Mike found my private language in the back of Home Sweet Homicide. He stole my book and tore out the pages with my secret King Tut talk. He was too young for it, just the way I'd told him. He didn't practice enough, and I could still speak it so fast he couldn't follow. But now I didn't have a friend to talk with me. Summer stretched ahead like a desert, while I sat on the stoop and dreamed of Tarzan and the apes.

«21»

Fallen Star

Camille Stranger

We were used to him not showing up for dinner, his chair empty. In the morning, his red truck missing from the driveway.

Mama stricter than usuaL..dinner, dishes, homework.

Weekends were staying out of the way, breathing shallow, slowing down time so he'd find his way back.

When he drove up looking raggedy I walked out, climbed on the running board, leaned in his window, said, "Daddy, you hungry?"

Mama's eyes stung the back of my head.

He bought the blue star sapphire after bingeing for over a week.

The square box lined in white silk, opened like a small communion mouth.

He asked me to try it on under the back porch light.

The little star spread like a spider on ocean blue, sliding perfectly on my 14-yeat-old fmger.

I felt I deserved it more than she did, for being loyal even in his absence. but she was tired of putting on lipstick, changing into fresh clothes to meet us at the bus stop, after school.

Tired of waking up alone, ready for a little starlight.

ÂŤ22Âť

Elegy For Kurt Cobain, Ten Years Later Hannah Selinger

The crocuses were just beginning to bloom purple around the neighborhood, the promise of a warm spring.

Eighth grade. I dressed in black, heavy chains weighing my ankles.

I dipped my hair in boiling Kool-Aid to turn it fire-engine red. I listened to you every day.

I cried all afternoon when Leah called to tell me that they'd found you in Seattle.

On television, only sobbing teenagers, a photograph of blue suede Converse one-stars, the shoes you had been wearing when you shot yourself in the head. My heart shattered that day.

I was thirteen-years old and you were the first I'd ever loved, the first blue eyes I'd ever seen as more than eyes. Now every scratchy guitar riff, every mourning voice from every radio reminds me of you.

I never fell in love again, not like that.

I dyed my hair back to brown. I sold the tapes.

You would have been thirty-seven this year.

ÂŤ23Âť

Sunset at Ocean City, Maryland Michael Prykowski

«24»

Self

Against the Wind Tom Graham

"Jacob, what sort of day is it outside?" asked the old man, without raising his head.

Jacob always paid special attention to his favorite resident, ninetytwo year-old Jackson King. "There's a chill in the air and it's a mite windy."

A sly smile crept across Jackson's wrinkled face as he raised his head and winked at the young orderly. "The wind, Jacob, I like the wind."

"You like the wind? Well, whatever. Come on, Mister King, it's time to eat. Are you gonna need some help gettin outa that big old chair? Or how's about a little help gettin' started?" Jacob knew the answer.

"No, thank ya, Jacob. You're a good man, but I ain't never needed no help gettin' started. Don't reckon I will now." Jackson paused as he looked down at his spotted and wrinkled hands on the arms of his favorite chair in the lobby of the home. He closed his eyes to help muster strength to push himself up. Suddenly it was seventy-five years ago and he saw young hands easing up to a jagged white line across a cinder track. He was once again Jackson King, record holder in the mile.

Ah, the mile. Here they call it the fifteen hundred, but to Americans it will always be 'The Mile; Not an endurance race, but much more than a sprint. Sprinters, the thought made Jackson smile. Back then he would run the sprinters into the ground. He'd push them and push them, then in the last two hundred yards...

"Are you gonna make it, Jackson?" asks Mrs. Negiliski. She always worried about him.

"Yes, Sue." He opened his eyes. "Just getting started, I'll be there directly." He closed his eyes again and he was back on the track.

I'll do a little stretching and check out the field. Let's see now. We've got the sprinters, Pelao from Brazil and the big Pol, Kieslowski. They'll be out fast, but they can't keep the pace. Kieslowski, he'll fade first. Sprinters.

Jackson grins again.

Then, there’s La Dour from France; he’s good, but he won’t be there at the tape. I don’t know the Australian, but I know the guy on my left.

Hielman, Hitler’s entry from the master race. He’ll try to lead all four laps.

To my right, Thomas Wilson, from England. Now he’s a finisher. He will be there at the end, of that I’m sure.

Stiff wind today and the race will finish into the wind, but I always run well against the wind. Always have...But, Wilson, can’t let him get away.

Can’t let him steal this race like he did in Canada. Not this one.

"Is you all right, Mister King?"

«26»

Jackson opened his eyes, and with a big push, arose with hopes that his once powerful legs would still support him. When his trembling hands gripped his walker, his legs steadied and he felt more secure. He answered, "Don't wait on me, Jacob; I'm a strong finisher."

Jacob smiles. "Yes Sir, I've heard that before."

"We've all heard that before," said Mrs. Lewis.

"Starters up."

The gun. It's a clean start. There go the sprinters. I got to stay close.

Pelao is out like a bullet... Legs feel good... Just don't lose him. Hielman and Kieslowski are right with him. The big Pol is starting to drop back a little. I knew he would... I gotta stay with Hielman as he runs alongside Pelao. Wait, who's that comin up? It's that Australian. Where did he come from and where the hell is Wilson?

"I got your chair ready for you, Mister King, right here next to Mister Borden."

"Damn it, Jacob, call me Jack."

"Yes Sir, Mister King."

"Are we waiting on him again?" asked Howard Borden, a retired stock broker, who never had much good to say about anyone.

Got a good stride now, everything feels good. Third lap and I'm running along with Pelao letting the big German make a hole in the wind for me. As soon as Pelao breaks I'll take him and make my move on Hielman.

Unless this little Aussie gets in my way. What in the hell's wrong with him, arms and legs flying everywhere. He runs like a damn animal.

What's that?... It's Wilson; he's right behind me. The limy bastard is stalking me, just like in Canada... And now I'm gonna get boxed in by this damn crazy Australian...

"What's wrong, Jackson, why have you stopped?" Asked Mrs. Negiliski. "Our soup is getting cold."

"I'll be there, Sue. I, uh, was just thinking about something. You can start without me."

"Jackson, you know Esther won't say grace unless we're all here."

"I can't believe that old man ever won a world championship," Howard added.

Jacob stopped pouring coffee. "Three world championships, Mister Borden."

"Whatever," Howard barked.

Starting the last lap and we're still all bunched behind Pelao and Hielman. The German is starting to pull away, leaving Pelao in front of me as La Dour moves up on my left. With Wilson on my tail and this crazy Aussie running on my right shoulder, I'm surrounded by knees, elbows and track shoes.

Damn this fool Australian, I can't get around him. I'm afraid if I try ÂŤ27Âť

to move on Him, he will clip me and we will all go down. ...

Okay, now where's Wilson?... He's gone around, he's goin after the German. And here I sit boxed in, like a duck...

Lavern Lewis looked up from her tea. "Roberta, has your granddaughter had that baby yet?"

Howard sat up and announced, "I'm going to start my soup; it'll be cold by the time that old fool gets to the table. I suggest you all do the same."

Howard's proclamation seemed to go unnoticed.

"Oh yes, Lavern, a boy. Don't you remember seeing the pictures yesterday?"

I've got two choices; stay here, and hope for an opening, or drop back, swing wide and pass the field on the outside. That means I'll be trying to run down the leaders at the tape while running against the wind... Shit!...

Well, you don't get to be a champion playing it safe. Look out; boys, the Yank is comin' around.

Behind the pack now. Chunks of dirt and cinders are flying up from their feet. Got to get where I can see the leaders. Running outside is the long way around, but I gotta' see the leaders...

"Oh, yes. Was it a boy or a girl?" Lavern asked.

"A boy." Howard growled.

"What are you so happy about, Howard?"

"Huh? Happy? I'm not happy."

"Why are you saying, 'Oh Boy?' Did you find some meat in your soup?" Sue asked.

"No, no... Roberta's granddaughter she had a baby." Howard responded.

"A baby! Was it a boy or a girl?"

Hielman is pulling away and Wilson is right with him... I've got to watch Hielman, I've got to set pace with him, then gradually pick it up.

Come on, Jackson. The crowd is on their feet, but the only sound I hear is the thunder of steel cleats on the track and the pounding of my own heart, which seems louder than ever.

As I pass the other runners I see them take a quick glance at me.

I feel as though I draw energy from them as I pass. They have given their best and they won't quit, but they know they are beaten. Now for Hielman.

Moving on him, closer, closer. Passing Wilson, he doesn't look.

Coming around the last turn and there's the wind. Like hitting a brick wall. Now, lower my head, watch Hielman's feet and lean into the wind.

Running alongside the big Nazi now. Pressing myself into the wind.

Push. Push. Hielman running straight up like the proud Arian, straining with all his might to hold me back.

Can't look at him now, just listen to the rhythm of his feet. That's ÂŤ28Âť

it. I hear it, a slight break, the ever so slight out of rhythm step I've heard so many times before. He asks his body for more and it's not there. I've got him.

Now, just run for the tape... Wait... What... Damn Wilson, Limy bastard.

No not like in Canada, not this time. Not against this wind. Ten yards to go. I can hear him grunting with every step as he reaches out with his long powerful legs. Come on Wilson, you're so damn sneaky, stay with me, come on. I'm gonna break you, come on. Running low along side Wilson. In full sprint mode now, head down, eyes focused on the tape. Wilson screaming, not wanting to yield. Oh, he's good, but not today old friend, this is my day.

Reaching for the tape and another World Championship, I swear, I think my heart is going to jump from my chest.

Esther pointed across the big table, "Jacob, something wrong with Jackson."

All eyes turned to Jackson King as he swayed and slumped over his walker. Jacob raced around the table while Howard stood and grabbed the elder miler.

With a painful look Howard said, "Oh no."

The table was silent as a teary eyed Jacob picked up frail World Champion and carried him out of the dinning room.

Through her tissue Sue said, "Oh, my God, poor Jackson; such a nice man."

"Did he ever tell you about the big race in Spain?" Roberta asked.

"I think we should have a prayer," announced Esther.

Howard having sat with his head down since Jacob left suddenly sat up, "Well, my soup's cold."

ÂŤ29Âť

I Am

Joe Mignone

I am living

I am of Earth, a human, a man, of the United States, of Italian heritage, three generations removed I am a son, a brother, an uncle, I will be a husband I am a student of many interests, I love learning, understanding, science I am a skeptic, a critical thinker I am a runner I am an avid reader, a sci-fi junkie I am an audiophile, a music lover I am a gamer I am a film buff I am a coffee cono sur I am a scotch drinker, and cigar smoker I am an insomniac, by choice I am a dreamer, deeply rooted in reality I am selfish, I am selfless I am compassionate, I am callous I am afraid of dying of potential nothingness I am flawed, I am flawless these things being relative, subjective I love life I am

ÂŤ30Âť

The Floating World Rick McKenzie

From inside the floating world, I see the world itself Through the selective windows. Sounds come from the earth.

The floating world filters them. Lifetime and my blood, Experience and genes expressed made the floating world From me, to be inside of me, to know the real world.

Words fill up the floating world, unseen and moving, Words that address what is real, making interface.

In so many clever ways the real can be used.

Words also create distance. The inside and the out Are separated more and more. It's surprising, then, When the thoughts and the words stop and there is just world To be unnamed by the senses in an empty mind.

The floating world soon re-forms with words and notions.

So much can be accomplished, so much can be known.

There's lots of room in floating worlds, space for songs and books, Geometry, French, guitars and bedtime stories.

Errors, lies, regrets as well, that can change what's real And what will be real when I'm gone and others float.

ÂŤ31Âť

I Am

Vicki Clark

I am the child who cries in distress, I am the mother who tries her best.

I am the fish flushed down the drain, I am the flicker to a kindling flame.

I am the waddling duck who fumbled, I am the guardian of the troubled.

I am the owl at morning light, I am the ninja of the night.

I am the pirate on a crusade for treasure, I am the kitten who purrs in leisure.

I am the pencil who rivals the sword, I am the soldier who detest war.

I am the riddle who remains unsolved.

I am the detective the riddle calls.

ÂŤ32Âť

Cascading Water John Furphy

«33»

Self-Portrait Vivian Lawry

My daughter and I sit at the oak table, addressing wedding invitations and chatting about the details of the ceremony as if her engagement hadn't opened a chasm between us. When Frances Rose lays her pen aside and twists her fingers into a knot, I know she's struggling to find the right words and brace myself. "Mama, it's about the wedding." She glances at me. "If you come to the wedding looking like—like you look...

Well, you know how—how startled—people are when they first meet you."

Her eyes dart from the window to the comer of the room to her hands. "A stay-at-home mom and the vice president of a bank...Doug's father isn't used to...it's just...they're very conservative people."

"You think they won't approve of my body art."

She nods but looks miserable, and I wonder whether she, too, mourns the closeness we shared for so long. "It's just..." She bites her lower lip, then rushes on: "Doug says not to worry. But I know his parents would rather he married an all-American girl. I just don't want to make that worse."

I ache that my beautiful daughter regrets her Chinese-American blend—her almond eyes, sweeping lashes, wavy black hair. Have you felt different all your life and struggled to hide it? Maybe we are more alike than either of us knew. I say, "You think I would make it worse?"

"Maybe. Probably." She stares at her hands. "But if you could...?"

The words are barely audible, but I think I hear tears in her voice.

"Don't worry, Rosebud. I won't embarrass you." I pat her hand and turn away, hoping she hasn't seen my hurt. Five years ago—even two—I would have been surprised. But recently, she's traded Buddhism for Methodism, dismissed number magic, and seldom mentions her wealthy relatives in Singapore. Now she seems to speak only of her Ph.D. professor grandparents on my side of the family. ***

I climb into bed trying to set the incident aside, but I cannot. Now I know why she has sidestepped every opportunity for me to meet Doug's parents. What does she think they will think of me? How bad does she think it would be? I sigh and roll to my other side. People always seem to focus on the weird stories about tattoos. At least, those are the ones they talk about. I've heard dozens over the years. I punch my pillow into a different «34»

shape, remembering a couple about weddings. One bride and groom got dragon tattoos to celebrate their engagement, and she had a dragon motif embroidered on her gown. The marriage didn't last a year. Another couple married, drunk, in Las Vegas, and went to a tattoo parlor after. The bride couldn't remember the groom's name and so she had a "?" tattooed in the heart on her left bicep. But your father and I were just two people who saw the conformity of the masses and chose to be different. Yes, we joked that he married me for the green card and I married him for the money. But we loved each other. Always. What would you say to your father if he were still alive?

How can you reject who we were, who I am? I curl into the fetal position.

Hell, do I even understand who I am? Mom insisted I was beautiful. But I grew up tall and gangly, smart and reclusive, bad skin and bad vision. I slumped to disguise my height, remained quiet and tried to meld with the walls or the furniture. I never wanted anyone to look at me. In high school, I saw one of those TV doctor shows. A man's earring had been ripped out in a bar fight and a plastic surgeon was repairing his earlobe. The man was so covered in black tattoos that I couldn't tell what he looked like underneath.

As a college freshman, I thought about that man a lot. I think about him still. ***

Nightmares plague my sleep. A phoenix, blue and red, burns in her nest of aromatic twigs but does not rise from the ashes. Rain and wind flatten an immense garden of China roses, beating their petals into the dirt. When the storm passes, the garden has morphed into a cemetery, with blue roses on all the graves. My daughter rises from one of the graves, translucent, and floats upward on the wind, her wedding dress billowing around her. I cry, "Come back! Come back! I love you!" to her retreating back. I wake sobbing, "I thought I taught you better than to use love as a weapon! You of all people should embrace tolerance." But a wedding, like a funeral, brings to the fore one's bedrock values—or yearnings, anyway.

Frances Rose wants traditional. I think of Frances Rose in her white gown, of white being the color of mourning in China, of the ancient practice of placing roses on graves, of blue roses as the symbol of the impossible. I push such thoughts aside and stand up—determined to do whatever is necessary to insure my daughter's happiness on her wedding day.

I look up cosmetic laser specialists in the Yellow Pages and call two. I learn that removing tattoos takes three to twelve sessions at twomonth intervals and costs up to $5000 for one medium-sized tattoo. Thank goodness I don't have time for that. I probably couldn't bear to remove them anyway. Would Frances Rose even have asked it?

«35»

***

As the days until the wedding count down, I shop. The perky young salesclerk says, "The wedding is June nineteenth? This silver-gray chiffon is way cool!" She darts glances at me, trying to see without staring. She probably thinks I don't notice.

The dress she offers has short sleeves and a scoop neck. It would reveal too much of the tattoo that covers my left shoulder and arm to the elbow—waves, mountains, trees, and birds in red, blue, black, green and yellow. Ping encouraged me when I spent hundreds of dollars for a tattoo artist to create it in the style of Hiroshige, derived from the Japanese prints I took to him. Ping always supported me. He was a friend first.

He loved my mind first. But he also thought me beautiful—and made me believe it true. I sigh and turn to the clerk. "I need something that covers my tattoo."

The clerk suggests a mint-green chiffon with long, filmy sleeves, a high boat-neck in front, and a deep V-back. I smile, remembering the mintgreen mini dress with spaghetti straps that I wore for my own backyard wedding, a wreath of daisies in my spiked tri-color hair. Ping wore a dark-green silk suit and shirt, custom made, and no tie. I would delight in wearing mint green for our daughter's wedding. The chiffon whispers down my body and clings in all the right places. But the deep V shows the red and blue phoenix that spans my back just above my waist—the tattoo I got for our fifth anniversary, when Ping added the black dragon tattoo up his left arm. The phoenix and the dragon, symbols of the empress and emperor, of our undying love. Part of the tattoo I got when Frances Rose was born is visible as well: a wreath of her Chinese birth flower on my right shoulder blade, lavender and green, her name entwined in the leaves, with a hummingbird in flight nearby. When she was an infant, we used to call her "Birdie." My body is a canvas of love. I turn from the mirror. "Do you have something else in green, but with more coverage?"

The clerk rolls her eyes and sighs. As she strides away, I hear her mutter, "No one goes to a June wedding wrapped up like a mummy!" She returns with taupe silk pants and a matching embroidered tunic with threequarter sleeves. "How about something like this? Not for the wedding. No way. But, like, for the rehearsal dinner?"

Alone in the dressing room, I bend over, pulling the fabric tight against my body. No hint of my four-foot cobra—entirely realistic, brown and yellow, slithering through grass, looping from the left side of my ribcage across my tailbone, over my right buttock, and down my right thigh. The tattoo artist created it from pictures of the pet I rescued from a dumpster after my sophomore year in college. I loved the feel of my cobra's muscular body twining dryly around my arm, my leg, my waist, and wept when he «36»

died. Of all my tattoos, my cobra is the most sensuous. It undulates when I walk. Ping used to trace its curves with his fingertips. I still long for Ping's fingertips on my body.

For the wedding, I choose a moss-green dress with an empire waist and a chiffon over-dress: mid-calf length, high neckline front and back, long filmy sleeves. If one looks closely, the Hiroshige tattoo on my left arm is visible through the chiffon. But the flowing sleeves mask much, and I doubt many people will look closely.

I search for matching shoes, heels no more than two inches high, that will cover the China rose on the outside of my right foot—my first tattoo, freshman year in college. I always loved roses, so I researched their meaning—and found eighty-one possibilities. I chose the China rose for beauty, charm, and grace. I wished I had been named Emily Rose, instead of Emily Frances. Emily means hardworking, which is okay, I guess, and Frances means free, which is great. But the myriad possibilities of Rose appeal to me. The name could be French, Scottish, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish—the next best thing to universal. I named Frances Rose for the two parts of the inner me—the free and the possible. I wonder whether Frances Rose will reject her name, too. I scour shoe stores and department stores, catalogues and boutiques for a solution to the problem of my rose tattoo. I find taupe sandals with wedge heels and a broad band of leather across the top for the rehearsal dinner. The leather band covers the rose completely. I finally settle on moss-green suede sandals for the wedding. The lattice of crisscrossed straps covers most of the China rose.

Green-tinted stockings will make the visible part hardly noticeable. Another part of me, hardly noticeable. ***

I plan the timing carefully. A week before the wedding, I cut the bicycle chain bracelet off my left wrist and remove the stud from my lower lip. By the rehearsal dinner, my lip will scarcely show a mark. I know it will heal fast because, decades ago, I had to remove my original lip stud during my residency in veterinary technology. Only pierced ears were allowed. I make an appointment with my hairdresser for the day before the wedding to change my black, white, and magenta hair to auburn. I will mousse the spikes into a slick, smoothed-down style that models have worn since Twiggy and no one pays much attention to now. I'll take out the tongue studs that day, too. I don't want the holes to close, and no one will notice holes in my tongue anyway. All I need to do about the nipple rings is wear a bra. I debate the emerald plug in my left ear: asymmetrical ears might be noticed, but a big empty hole in one ear might be noticed more. People think I did these things to my body so that everyone would look at me. I did «37»

them so they would focus on the surface, so they wouldn't look too closely.

Transforming myself now, I feel increasingly visible—and increasingly transparent. *** Day after day I diminish myself, but Frances Rose doesn't say thank-you— doesn't even seem to notice. She's been immersed in wedding plans for months—showers and bridesmaids luncheons and fittings, setting up gift registries and choosing china and silver—and I seldom see her without Doug. I like Doug, but he changes the equation. After Ping died—after the trucker fell asleep at the wheel and barreled over his motorcycle—all she and I had was each other. Before Frances Rose met Doug, she talked to me about everything. Now, I feel as though in her world, I'm barely there. She never chose to get a tattoo, but I always felt she was okay with mine. And she never seemed concerned about fitting in. Losing Ping was fast and final.

Losing my daughter is slow, and I hope not irreversible. Hope is draining. *** As the wedding draws near, Frances Rose blooms but my energy wanes. I lie in bed, spent by the effort of being. My empty lip quivers. Thorns of the China rose pierce my foot. The phoenix flutters its wings. My belly button ring is a circle of fire, burning into my gut. In the bathroom mirror, my tattoos look faded. But I have no energy to focus on that. I retreat to bed. ***

The day before the wedding, Frances Rose comes to my bedroom.

She knocks, and calls. "Mom? Are you ready for the rehearsal dinner?"

I cannot answer. Part of me has flown with the phoenix. The rest of me has faded with the China rose. No one will see me at the wedding.

THE END

«38»

Empty Bottles Hayley Gibson

«39»

I Am

Caitlin Weniger

I am Wawa hazelnut coffee with french vanilla creamer I am a beat up Volkswagon Passat with the bumper tied on I am Criminal Minds marathons and Law and Order: SVU I am class Monday through Friday, work Tuesday through Sunday I am TrueBlood and Boardwalk Empire I am Shakespeare's plays and sonnets I am Psychology club, Colleges against Cancer, Student Government

ÂŤ40Âť

From Two

Hope Slaughter

to one bathrobe on the hook toothbrush by the sink set of keys by the door from doubles to singles passenger to driver duet to solo dos to uno, I've lost my place on the dance floor, at the bottom of your ladder, holding my finger on the knot for you an empty space of one.

ÂŤ41Âť

Relationships

To Adele Dan Miller

Your voice is like the most beautiful song, So lovely to my ears and to my soul.

I feel wonderful when I sing along, Yet my heart breaks and I cannot be whole, Because you wear emotions on your sleeve And share them in the songs you sing so well.

They change like the color of autumn leaves; Turning and falling from the trees, expelled.

Adele, your auburn hair, your hazel eyes, Your expression when you pour out your heart.

I hope to meet you someday in our lives But for now, I'll just admire your fine art.

In this belief ever will I stay strong: I hope that "someone like you" comes along.

ÂŤ43Âť

It's Time

Stephanie Hubbard

Wakes me up from a sound sleep My belly's as round as a garbage heap I ask myself if this is it...no?

Day one was not that long ago Sticky water fills the bed I shout Get up! Get up you sleepy head We run to the car as if in a race There's no slowing down this fast pace.

A speeding ticket we may earn My tummy tightens with every turn The bright red letters means we're near With the hospital in sight I have nothing to fear She looks at me lovingly as I hold her for the first time Nine months of planning and now she's all mine.

ÂŤ44Âť

A Man and His Best Friend Katherine Starrantino

I don't know how it happened, but here I was again. Back in the cramped cage at the animal shelter. I shouldn't complain, it was certainly much better than where I came from, but yesterday I had a day in heaven with a wonderful family, great food and comfy bed. I couldn't help but review the last day in my mind and wonder what had gone wrong. Certainly it couldn't have been when I bumped into the family's youngest daughter, causing her to drop her ice cream cone. Surely they couldn't blame me for that! It was chocolate chip mint for God's sake! Who wouldn't want to get a little taste! Although, thinking back, it seems like that was the point where everything changed. I had heard them make a phone call and talk about a dog "charging" at their daughter. At the time, I didn't consider that the dog in question could have been me. I didn't think I had charged. I was just hungry, I was always hungry. Well, no time to worry about it now. I resigned myself to the cold metal cage and flat mattress pad. I began to drift off into my daily afternoon nap when the sound of footsteps woke me up. "Yes that's him! That's the dog!" a man was exclaiming excitedly. I closed my eyes and rolled to my side. I knew it wasn't me. Probably one of the younger, smaller dogs, as usual! "I can't believe he's back! I thought I had missed him for good." My ears perked up and I jumped to my feet. My tail banging loudly against the cage. Yes! It was me! I was going to a new home and I wouldn't mess it up again!

Jack was his name. Riley was my name. He told me so on the car ride home. He was thrilled to have me. He shared with me that he had visited the shelter and picked me out last weekend. He just needed a few days to convince his wife to accept me into their home. When he came back for me, I was gone. Jack was devastated. I was the exact dog he wanted.

He couldn't even try to look at other dogs in the shelter that day. He just went home and sulked. The next day, he got a call from Cindy at the animal shelter who told him I had been brought back, Jack was ecstatic. I was going to love my new home. That’s what Jack said. And he was right. The first ten minutes at my new home I had 4 bowls of kibble, although I was beginning to regret that fourth one because it was leading to an awful tummy ache. I was fitted with a brand new bright red collar and leash and Jack's daughter Katie took me for a nice long walk! My new neighborhood was beautiful with many different smells to be smelled!

Jack's wife, Laura, fawned over me. She was a nurse and was horrified at the condition I was in. I weighed in at a scrawny 40 pounds, «45»

when a healthy weight for me would be 80 pounds. She gave me so much love and attention, I instantly fell for her! As Laura gently stroked my head (between the eyes as if she knew it was my favorite spot) and scratched my ears, I fell into a deep sleep and so ends the first night at Jack’s house.

I awoke in a panic. Wondering when I would be sent back. I walked on pins and needles the whole day but as nighttime arrived I came to the realization that I wasn't going back to the shelter! At least not today. It turned out I didn't go back to the shelter the next day, or the day after or the one after that. Jack and I were fast friends and I soon became confident that his home would be my home for as long as I lived. I knew that I would never see the inside of that shelter again.

I sprinted through the woods with Jack following behind me. When he and I went for walks, I was allowed off my leash, which was a great treat. I loved the crunch of the fall colored leaves under my paws and the wind blowing through my blond hair (recently brushed - thanks to Laura). I circled back around and ran back to Jack, receiving a pat on the head. Then we walked together through the woods while Jack told me what a lifesaver I was. He described to me what a very sad life he had been living. A few months ago he had been let go from his job. It made him feel awful and put a lot of stress on him and his family. I gave him a little grunt to show him I understood the pressures of stress. He continued on to tell me how depressed he had become. He felt as though his life had no meaning. When I came into his life, I gave him a reason to get up every morning. I gave him company and companionship. I wanted to tell Jack how I felt the same way.

He had saved my life. Since living with Jack's family, I had gained weight, become much healthier and gotten the veterinary care I needed. So I gave him a lick and he gave me a pat and I knew that we understood each other.

Now, not only was I Jack's best friend but I was also a lifesaver, and that was a very important job indeed!

Over the next few months I took on a few new roles in addition to best friend and lifesaver. I became a doorbell, barking incessantly every time someone knocked, just to make sure Jack and the family knew someone was there. A vacuum cleaner - quickly sucking up any type of food that was dropped onto the floor and a grand-dog. Jack's parents had adopted me into the family (they now had two granddaughters and one grand-dog).

It was about a year into my life at my new home when Jack became sick. He said it was the flu and so I believed him. Laura, who was a nurse, did not. She demanded that Jack take a trip to the hospital and after putting up a bit of a fight, Jack finally complied. I would have worried about Jack that day but I didn't have time. I had a veterinary appointment scheduled «46»

and Katie took me.

The best part was the car ride. She rolled down the back windows and I stuck my head out, feeling the wind blow back my soft, floppy ears. I absolutely loved car rides. I also loved the vet. Every time I impressed her, I got a treat. A treat for jumping on the scale, a treat for jumping off, a treat for when she gave me the thermometer, a treat for when she was finished, a treat before my blood work and a treat after. I was a very happy dog when we came home but that feeling quickly faded when I saw Laura's tear stained face.

Cancer.

Jack had cancer.

I did not know what it was but I knew it was horrible. Everyone cried. I took on a new role as tissue as I licked away the tears on their faces and allowed them to rub their wet noses against my fur. Two days later, a call came from the veterinarian. Laura gasped and looked at Jack with worry in her eyes.

Cancer.

I had cancer.

We were walking through, the woods again. I walked slowly beside Jack. We talked. We talked about what life had been like in the past and what life would be like now. Jack was worried about hair loss, sickness from his chemo treatments and death. I was worried that I would lose my appetite. Jack told me a little bit about cancer and I nodded, although I didn't quite understand. As we strolled back down the street to our house, I couldn't help but think I felt closer to Jack than I ever thought I would.

The next few months were a blur. Jack and I were always tired. He would lie down on the tan carpet next to me and we would take naps. Jack's taste buds started to change and he was constantly experimenting with new foods to find something he could enjoy. I helped by tasting the foods with him. A favorite for the both of us turned out to be cod! Jack would get blood work once a week and so would I. We both went on steroids to help us fight the cancer. We both bulked up and hated it! Jack had surgeries and I had surgeries. Afterwards, he would lie on the couch, I on my bed, and we would cry and complain to one another about the incessant pain. ÂŤ47Âť

A year after our diagnoses, I got good news. The treatment was working and my veterinarians were hopeful. They said I was responding well and they were able to lower my doses of medication. I didn't have to get blood work as often and for now, I didn't need any more surgeries.

Jack's doctors also gave him good news. He was progressing well and although his initial diagnosis had not been good, now the doctors were sure that he had more time. His chemo sessions were reduced and so were his medications. We both felt better and started our walks in the woods again.

We told each other how thankful we were to have one another. When we came home, we shared our good news with the family. We all cried and hugged and then we had chocolate chip ice cream, all of us, even me.

ÂŤ48Âť

The House on Narcissus Street Lisa L. Leibow

On Narcissus Street a three-story house is perched upon a hill of flowers that looks like a pile of string. A grass welcome mat made from recycled plastic graces the front entrance. Every room is wrapped with built-in bookshelves. In no time at all the father-Businessman, motherHousewife, and boy-Student fill them with books. The Businessman's favorite is The Fat Man—a story of frustration with the face of greed.

Bigger than the matchbox-of-an-apartment behind Safeway from where the family-of-three had moved, the house on Narcissus Street means stability, better schools, and enough space for a pet—a parrot or a dog—for the boy.

Trouble looms. At first, in the house, disaster is confined to a plasma screen: planes crash into twin towers, wars and tsunamis half-a-world away, hurricanes and oil spills impact those gone south. The insulated walls of the house on Narcissus Street protect the family within. One scarcely can distinguish between the pixilated images of these horrors and the dark scenes the boy-Student watches in episodes of Crusader Rabbit Rides the Red Horse or the father-Businessman's favorite Tarrantino flick.

The Housewife loves the double-hung windows that can tilt in to clean. Her giddy laugh fills the air as she washes the outside of the panes from the inside of the family room. She makes a show of this chore each spring, singing along to More, More, and More, and swaying her hips while swiping the squeegee across the glass...until the diagnosis.

The first spring cleaning that she skips, nobody thinks about the windows. Her son the Student is too busy with childhood distractions, like playing out endless games with his blocks and action figures. Her husband the Businessman stays late at the office, cocooned in his false sense of security. Springtime comes and goes and the Housewife naps on the couch, too weak to scrub from shingles to floor. She wishes the linoleum would open up like a manhole so she could hide inside. Each time another layer of comfort disappears, she thinks, I don't want to know. I don't want to know.

Her son the Student stacks a red block building, interspersing black blocks as boarded-up windows. To the left he constructs two small houses with Popsicle-stick roof trestles open to the elements, wondering what it would be like to sleep under the stars. At least once a week the student stretches a candy necklace over his head and sits in front of Good Eats. He licks one candy bead at a time, letting it melt until it breaks free from the elastic string. The Food Network is background noise. The only one paying attention is the orchid by the window.

«49»

While the Student plays with his toys to the sounds of Good Eats, his parents seek distraction from their troubles. The Businessman tells his wife, "We can count on Uncle Sam," and tries to make light of their medical expense-induced financial woes by buying her new lingerie. She slinks into the lacy number and tries to play along. It's no use; instead of getting lost in the touch, she conjures images of every doctor's bill, mortgage coupon, and dollar in her 40 I K crunching through a shredder. Next the shredder takes her body and soul. The confetti becomes a pyramid as upside down as her world. Breasts and genitals on display to nurses while bank statements and bounced checks transform into dirty little secrets.

Her life—the world—is falling apart and he wants sex—like that solves everything. She goes through the motions, but really... The system is failing. She thinks, Am I supposed to sing G-d Bless America just because he plays with my nipples? ***

When the Housewife shuffles into the kitchen wearing a wig, the Businessman's gut feels like it's filled with birds feeding on a thistle seed-encrusted hand grenade. His eyes dart to the window in search of a comforting view. But the tilt-in windows are spattered with pollen, misguided mosquitoes, and berry-tinged bird poop. The mucked-up view triggers a wish for the grenade in his gut to explode—anything to stop the shame. His eyes dart back to discover the Housewife avoiding his gaze by staring at the orchid near the television. The magenta center of the orchid's bloom glistens. The Housewife's gray pallor enhances the dullness in her eyes.

"Bad news—I've been downsized," he says.

With no job prospects, the Businessman sits on the front stoop, greeting neighbors so stiffly he might as well be sitting on the tip of an upside-down funnel. When unemployment runs out the Businessman gives up networking and shaving. He once thought about his son's future in college, maybe becoming a doctor, perhaps setting up an office with a diploma on the wall. He might comfort his patients and protect them from fear of inevitable decline. But now he wonders if his son will finish high school, let alone make it to college. For the first time the Businessman cannot buy a solution.

Oddly, as the sheriff marches in like a soldier to evict them, the Businessman remembers moving into the house on Narcissus Street and the feeling he could climb forever—no top in sight. He, his wife, and son watch the sheriff remove their belongings from the house. A pill, a paper scrap, and a bit of yarn strewn on the Berber sear themselves into the Businessman's memory as a still-life self-portrait. The Housewife grabs his «50»

hand and squeezes it, oblivious to the fire in the Businessman's belly. Molten metal, fragments swimming like amoebas under a microscope. Lost in his own world, he half-hears the sheriff's attempt at comfort.

"I have a report. We are now looking at all the contingency options and awaiting word from..."

The Businessman wonders, From whom? Who's in charge? Who has the recovery plan? How long will it take? What do I do while I'm waiting?

Stay in a tent?

He retrieves his copy of The Fat Man, wishing to rediscover hope through books.

Before he knows it, the hope of Narcissus Street is a memory. He's restless in the darkness within canvas walls of a tent near Target.

His wife says, "It's only temporary. We'll climb out of this mess."

The house on Narcissus Street sits on high ground; the tent is pitched in a mud-filled valley. The house is the perfect place to enjoy garlic roasted chicken and honeyed yams around the kitchen table; a memorable meal in the tent comes from day-old bread and what's left of the candy necklace. On Narcissus Street the Student spent Saturday mornings watching cartoons; in the tent he makes up stories in his head. In the house he awoke to the smell of pancakes and bacon frying. In the tent he awakens to a grumbling stomach and digs through the Dumpster for breakfast.

Hopes of parrots or puppies turn to dread of seagulls and rats.

In the tent the Student is plagued by nightmares that strip the house on Narcissus Street of its siding and expose its Tyvek under-layer.

The house oozes pink insulation. The excretions transform to pink skies with silver treasures showering down—a glimmer of hope. In contrast, the Businessman's memory of the house is churning, devolving into oblivion.

He imagines a future where archaeological excavation finds no evidence of his family. There is no monument to the homeless.

ÂŤ51Âť

Home Dinner

Stanley Morris Noah

lt's the light That catches the color Of wine in your eyes, Not the crystal glass lt's poured into.

You see me Across the table, I shake some salt, Say little or nothing.

You turn on the radio For music or other times The T.V. I stack Our empty plates.

This is how we love As the evening moves—

«52»

The Ford Granada Brian Huba

When I was a teenager my father drove a silver 1978 Ford Granada with rust holes the size of softballs. At a time when being ‘cool’ was a gargantuan deal, the Granada was an embarrassment. I remember talking to girls outside the movie theatre on a Friday night, seeing the Granada coming across the parking lot like a smoke screen, and darting behind the bushes until the girls had gone off. In ninth grade when I had bi-weekly braces appointments that meant I had to leave school on early release, I would shrink in shame as the Granada rounded past student parking, roared to a stop outside the senior wing. "Is that your ride?" the office secretary would ask. I'd say "I don't think so. But let me see," then make that death-row dash from the school's front doors, praying that nobody watched through the classroom windows, but realizing a thousand eyes were probably on me, including Rachel Sykes's, the cheerleading captain I had a heavyweight crush on. My father kept garbage bags filled with empty beer cans on the seats, cans he always meant to recycle but never got around to. Before he backfired from the high school lot, the Hefty bags would be relocated to the trunk, to make room for me in the shotgun seat. He'd take care of that, and I'd nose dive though the open door onto the sun-cracked, maroon bucket, pull the creaky door shut, bury my head between my knees, eying the blue-collared G.E. shirts on the floor mat. My dad would climb behind the faded-rubber wheel, and say, "You feeling sick?" He'd put the car in gear with an irritated snicker, and off we went with a bang from the bad exhaust.

The Granada was in my life a little over a decade. When it r-r-r-ran, it could never be trusted, dying at red lights, submitting on the shoulder of a rural road. After that it sat at the side of the driveway like a monument in soft mud, beside the broken-down motorboat my father was perpetually fixing, and the 'slightly used' snowmobile he never made go. When he put some coin together, the neighborhood mechanic duck taped the silver machine back together, and the Granada was out of its open grave. I'd come «53»

home from school, and my mother would meet me at the house's front door with a look that meant Oh my God, the Granada's back. When she knew I'd read her expression right, she'd say, "Can you freakin' believe it?" and raise both clenched fists above her head.

Before our summer vacations to New Hampshire, my father would spray paint the rust holes for the 4-hour drive to the Atlantic Ocean.

Easter Sundays, he took mercy on my mother and me by parking at the far end of the church's lot. He knew the truth: We hated the Granada. We didn't understand the value in keeping something way past expiration.

"Gotta get your money's worth," he'd always say. But, when church ended and the Easter pictures were posed for, he always drove straight through the gathered congregation on the way out. Check the back seat, beside the Hefty bag of Bud cans. That's me, at 12 years old, donning a K-Mart necktie; face buried between the knees of my pleated slacks that would've looked oh-so cool without a rust box wrapped around them. When my uncle Jack and his blonde wife came to the house in his midnight blue Camaro with the 5-speed and mag wheels, he'd ask my father, "Steve, how come you don't get something new?" Steve would give Jack a look like he just suggested shooting the President, then say, "What for?"

It was after one of those orthodontist appointments that my father brought me to McDonalds. I was 14 years old. He ordered his usual: three cheeseburgers, medium fry, medium soda. We drove to a little league park behind the Mickey-D's called West Land Hills, parked the car and got busy with the grub. My father always ate his cheeseburgers the same way.

He'd set the sandwich between the front seats, carefully pull off the yellow wrapping, hold it in his hand, biting in a clockwise circle till it was finished.

In fact he always did everything the same way. Kept his wallet in the same spot on the counter with his car keys. Smoked Kool Ultra 100's in the same chair at the table. Drank his rum mixed with Ruby Red from the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets thermos. He left for second-shift work at exactly 1.45 P.M. Always.

While we sat there that day, he told me about a time when he was much younger, and wanted to start a go-cart park behind that McDonald's.

It was his dream for the kids to call him Mr. Fun. When I asked him why it never happened, he said his father, "Grandpa" refused to put up the money, it was a dumb idea. "That was a long time ago," my father said, and he went back to his lunch. After we ate, my father FINALLY decided to clean the car's interior. He was a packrat by nature. But sometimes enough was enough. So he backed the Granada to a green garbage can, and started filling the receptacle with old newspapers, plastic shopping bags, coffee cups, everything in between. I ate fries while he worked; all four passenger doors and the trunk popped open for easy access. As he carried another armful of crap to the garbage, a yuppie-looking guy with a pinstriped ÂŤ54Âť

suit and stylish eye glasses, came to the can. Probably a State Worker on his 12 P.M. break. But I didn't know that then. I just saw the suit and got impressed. My father dropped his junk, looked at the yuppie, and said, "Nice day, ain't it?"

Even when I was young I knew my father and I had very little in common. I wasn't sure he was someone I could be proud of. Did I love him, fear him, hate him? All oft he above. Growing up, I always made strategies to avoid him. If he was out back I went through the front. I hated saying happy birthday to him. One Father's day I told him he wasn't my dad. Why? I wanted attention. He had an invisible field around him that meant do not enter. Sometimes that field was no bigger than the kitchen, sometimes it was the size of Saturn. Steve came from a tough-guy bunch from the city of Albany. When they were teenagers, they hung by a convenience store called the Courtesy Mart, playing cards and smoking butts. As adults they worked hard, drank hard, partied hardest. College degrees were punch lines in their world. My childhood was littered with memories of Stacky's camp, and Five Mile parties with bikers, and guys named Six Pack and Big John. My dad worked a labor job at General Electric I didn't understand. He smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol every day, and was always frustrated about something, snapping into fits over anything from roast beef to rent money.

I remember being driven to a dusty road behind Stacky's camp, whipped by him for something I can't recall. Whipped. I can still see the shine of those dirt specs on that back road, nobody but me, Steve, and the belt.

There was no predicting his next burst. My parents were young.

They argued a lot. We lived in a basement apartment with no windows for five years before buying in the country. He didn't like tossing ball or shooting hoops. He was bald by twenty five, a beer belly soon after. He grew a full beard and mustache, and looked like Homer Simpson the one time I saw him shaved clean. He didn't care about material things or fancy clothes like my uncle Jack. He didn't have a college degree or golf-club membership like his six brothers. My mother sometimes said Steve was the black sheep of his side, but that was only when they argued. I never imagined one day being like my dad. And I sure as hell would never drive a rust bucket on wheels.

When Steve said, ''Nice day, ain't it?" the yuppie turned his nose, legged it fast from that green garbage can, the same way someone would when a hobo begs change. I watched my father stand there, button-down flannel and jeans, his few hairs flying every which way, mountain-man style. He shook his head with disgust, the only defense mechanism I ever saw him exhibit habitually. When he came back to the car, sat behind that faded-rubber wheel, he was silent for a while. It was awkward. He'd been in such a good mood before the yuppie's snub. Now I was afraid he'd burst ÂŤ55Âť

and bring this happy day down. I so rarely spent time with the man without my mother playing buffer. But here we were. He'd been humiliated, and I no longer felt embarrassed for sitting prisoner in Rusty Jones's worst nightmare. For a second I forgot the anger and fear I had for him. For a second we were together, father and son, and nothing else mattered. I felt embarrassed for him, and from that feeling surged a sense of loyalty and anger. This was my father and what just happened wasn't right, even at 14, I knew that. I'll never forget what he said to me after that wall of silence slid away. He looked at me, and said, "Don't ever judge somebody by the way they look or what they drive." I said I wouldn't, and he started the car, and homeward we were. It was the first piece of perfect advice he'd ever given me. It was the first time I felt he talked directly to me, mano a mano.

I no longer wanted to avoid him. I wanted to penetrate that invisible field around him forever.

By the time we hit the highway, he'd forgotten the whole thing.

He was singing the words to a rock/pop song on the radio. The song said, ''there's winners and there's losers/But they ain't no big deall'Cause the simple man baby pays the thrills/The bills, the pills that kill." He beat that faded-rubber wheel with his hands, sang out loud, and I'd never seen that side of him. I'll never forget that yuppie in the park, that piece of advice, or my father singing those words as long as I live. That day lives like an island in our relationship, separate of the dynamic that otherwise existed. It was the greatest day we had together, because it marks our closest moment, even if the circumstance was less than ideal. And I wonder if it would've happened that way without the Granada.

The Granada hung around a few more years. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it sat driveway duty. When it hit 200,000 miles, Steve made us all pose for a picture with the car, both my mother and I holding 100 Grand candy bars close together. By the time I graduated high school, it was gone, to the afterlife of Art Dell's Junkyard. I was sad to see it go. I wish I could say my attitude about the silver beast changed after that day in the park.

I wish I could say I was never as embarrassed about climbing inside and backfiring from the high school lot. I wish I could say I borrowed it when I was sixteen to pick Rachel Sykes up for a Saturday-night date, and made her hold the Hefty bag of beer cans while I drove, and she loved it. But I can't say that because it never happened. I was a typical teenager: short sighted, self involved, stupid. No way the Granada was ever gonna cut snuff in my world.

I guess the lesson of that day wasn't learned till it was too late.

Fast forward thirteen years and I'm sleeping late on a snowy Saturday morning, a few days after the New Year, 2009. I'd heard my cell phone ring from the other room a few times, but ignored it. Finally after the fifth call, I stumbled from bed, past the wall that displayed my college ÂŤ56Âť

degrees and teaching licenses, to see who was so determined. It was my mother calling, and she was crying, and asking me if I was ready, "Really ready" for what she had to say. My mother's a dramatic woman and we had a family dog that was closing in on Rainbow Bridge, so naturally I assumed.

When the line went silent, I thought she'd disconnected. I went to redial, and she said, "Steve's dead." Just like that. He'd gotten out of bed at 6 A.M., gone downstairs, made a cup of tea, sat in his TV chair, the same chair he always sat in, and died. A massive heart attack. He was 54. By noon he was in the morgue, arrangements were underway, and the house was filled with friends and family. Two days later his wake brought out 700 of Albany's finest, passing the casket, and telling me how great of guy my father was. I remembered when I was a teenager and I was sure he wasn't a man I could look up to. I remembered being embarrassed by his balding head, and beer belly, and rust-filled Granada; how everyone thought I was so poor when they saw it. But on that night, I met the man that everyone else already knew, the 'great guy,' regardless of what he drove or the jeans he wore. The material things mean nothing in the real world. Just ask the ones who stood two hours in a snow storm to say farewell to a man who never cared about flash. I was beginning to understand what Steve was trying to teach me that day when he said, "Don't ever judge somebody by the way they look or what they drive."

A few weeks later, I learned it some more. It was a Monday afternoon and I was with my mother when an insurance examiner called.

He'd said my father had built several life policies that nobody knew about.

He'd been shrewd with his savings, uncompromising in his vision for a bigger, better future, a day when motorboats and snowmobiles ran. It was the future he'd wanted for his family. It was the future he figured on a second-shift laborer's job while driving a rusty Granada for ten years. The insurance man told my mother her mortgage was satisfied, and it was time for her to retire a few years ahead of schedule, since lacking money would no longer be a problem. His gift to her was the simple, easy existence she always wanted, all financial worries dashed, and a promise to prolong her life as long as possible.

The other day I was driving with the sun roof down, and Mellencamp's "Pink Houses" came on the radio. I recognized those rock/ pop lyrics, and remembered the day I ate McDonald's with Steve in the old Granada, and he told me about his dismissed dream of having go carts and being Mr. Fun. I remembered the way that yuppie snubbed my father over a green garbage can. I remembered on the highway how Steve sang that verse with such vigor. When the song made that same part, I hit the leather steering wheel of my overpriced car, and said, "There's winners and there's losers/But they ain't no big deal/'Cause the simple man baby pays the thrills/The bills, the pills that kill." I thought of my father and his blue-collar ÂŤ57Âť

mentality that meant securing his family's future and forgetting his selfish, short-term desires. I thought of my mother, financially secure for the rest of her life. I thought of the yuppie in the fancy eye glasses and pinstriped suit. And I thought of the silver 1978 Ford Granada with rust holes the size of soft balls. And, for the first time, I knew what the song said was true, I knew there were winners and losers in life, and I finally knew the difference between the two.

ÂŤ58Âť

One Night Stand Fred Yannantuono

Out and about, headed off to work, Faded moonlight pools with morn.

Striding past 5th and Park with a bit of a smirk—­ The flash of her smile like a page half torn, The shriek of a mynah like some crazy horn— I notice the stain on my tie, that my belt's looking worn.

I can't figure out why I feel like a bit of a jerk.

Nothing has stirred except the unborn.

«59»

Valentine’s Day Joan Gelfand

Cupid’s army woke up On the wrong side of the bed.

Shot a shower of arrows helter skelter.

Hearts were slashed, lives were razed.

All the wrong people were falling in love.

Call it global warming, climate change The darts flew willy-nilly.

Married fell in love with married Single with married, old with young.

Mothers tied yellow ribbons around baby carriages Brides-to-be pulled the wedding veil close To protect from Cupid’s mayhem.

Still, souls collided and worlds divided When Cupid struck us broadside.

We felt an ache as the small bones, The ones that protect heart from hurt, Front and back, cracked.

Pierced arrows fell limp, angled When Cupid turned his face askew, And Love, his mercurial agent, ran amok.

«60»

The Train

Katherine Pierzga

Katherine is her gently name.

Francis is his formal name.

She loves a man, shh it's a secret.

He loves a woman, shh it's a secret.

She sees him everyday on the train.

He leaves work early to catch her train, She sits in the same seat about to sweat, He runs to the place where they first met.

She hopes he will sit next to her again.

This secret he keeps drives him insane.

Her heart beats rapidly, She doesn't know how he feels, When he walks through the door.

After all the small talk, Their small talk flows fluently, After he fell again, head over heels, Until Katherine leaves, just like before.

His heart breaks instantly as she begins to walk.

The Train was written to be read a certain way: the left column first then the right column. I used two characters Katherine and Francis. It is a poem about a shy love. I tried to carry the sound the "s" makes through out the poem, such as; in shh, she, secret, keeps and drives. I feel that somewhat links them into one even though they do not exist as a couple. I also wrote the poem using this white space to blend them together even though they are not a couple. I used onomatopoeia in the word "shh". I used euphony combined with cacophony in the same poem to demonstrate a sort of seesaw effect. An example would be beats rapidly and flows fluently. The beats rapidly would be the cacophony and the flows fluently would be the euphony because well it flows fluently. I also follow a rhyming scheme, a b a b a c d c d. I repeated the same pattern on the other side to resemble the togetherness in the poem.

ÂŤ61Âť

After a Master Project/Van Gogh Katherine Coughlin

«62»

Outside the Theater Jed Myers

Near the end of a good movie, when the one left on screen looks off toward where the other is gone (under a ridge, into the ground, maybe down to a point on the sea's horizon ...), the loss is digested in seconds—of course (the actor's face says), this dance, this quiet glory, is over, but in me, the savor already, the after-story, it winds its silky resonance behind my ribs, so when I turn and go (the final scene), O sea-eyed audience, you will see how not alone I am.

But here, among the solid things outside the theater, where I kiss her cheek (and secretly inhale a gratis whiff of her) before she turns to find her car, I know— she'll disappear around that corner and tonight, tomorrow, another week, a year (an oceanic stretch whose other shore is nowhere in sight), though I squint into the shifting waters of the street, weave the senses' shreds of us together in my chest, I won't assimilate, I won't digest.

«63»

October Rain Hope Slaughter

It was early that year.

We watched it from your bedroom window all day, recalled other rains, other times, flares of blue-white lightning that warned of shattering Texas thunder, split-open skies hammering South Dakota wheat, rain roiling to hail in the mountains pelting the RV roof and windshield until the shelter of an overpass or trees of a campsite, where we felt one, and lucky inside our cocoon, and so many evenings at home by the fire, insistent background of gurgling down spouts, October thirteenth, it's early again this year, October rain.

ÂŤ64Âť

Mooring, Barnegat Light Laurie Sewall

Long weeks then the boats come back and you're sleeping here next to me: how varnished the stars in our little room how unharmed our bodies— your splendorous sound some graying hair your heavy chest.

Bell of my lithe exuberance all night you gaze through me like water

«65»

Pentimento

Robert Rothman

It's strange to see now and then, the focus of the lens shifting back and forth, so when I look at you I see the girl I knew and woman you've become, your smile a ripple sending me back to years before, but even then, when my eyes first alighted on you, it was as if I'd seen your face, a flash of recognition sparked, forgotten in the dark forest of passion until now, when kissing you, I kiss two. And with eyes closed can't tell when and with whom.

ÂŤ66Âť

It Was

Jeb Myers

The sense of consequence—you press the key that opens the bright window to destiny number three, before you're out the door. You couldn't know the funnel of your own dreams. The kids claim their accidental universes, the house gets painted and sold, the soul you fell in with involutes away and a piece of silvered glass tells you you're old. What of the love, the pressing hand you held? Well, it was. And many rounds round the sun. The white columnar laurel blossoms brown over tumbled camellia.

«67»

How Can I Tell Her Hope Slaughter

there might come a time when she would welcome muddy boot tracks on the rug that rain-soaked jacket in the front hall, when she would welcome a pat on the bottom as she stoops to light the evening's fire, or the surprise of his breath on her neck as she stands at the kitchen sink, when she would gladly slow her steps to match his on a cool morning's walk or be happy to laugh with him at his favorite old movie again, that a single stroke of time can multiply a thousandfold when it is no longer there.

ÂŤ68Âť

Wallow

Debra Nicholson

You think yourself a reasonable person. You want to put into practice all you've learned your entire life. You want to act civilized, kind, and forgiving. But all you can think is that driving a tent stake through his head would be so much simpler. Or drawing and quartering him or poking out his eye. You know who—the former husband, the one whose career dreams you supported for 25 years, the one who thought you were fat and stupid, and boring—and shrill. The one who cheated on you. The father of your children.

Really, you can't think of a good reason not to do any of these things. You spend hours, weeks, months thinking up different kinds of torture—you read Poe and wish you had a catacomb in which to bury him alive. You wish you had a large red A you could sew into his naked chest and make it mean something. Maybe you could hold his head underwater in the backyard pool. Nothing seems horrible enough to wreak revenge on him.

But, he's moved out and you never see him except to transfer the children every other weekend.

You yourself are left with hot coals of anger. You develop ulcers and new twitches. You get migraines every week instead of once a month.

Your face is permanently blotchy from all the tears you've shed and you're plunged into a deep depression from which you'll never recover. Your children don't understand why you're screaming at them; they've done nothing wrong.

Sometime later you realize you can't go on like this: You'll lose your health. And you are civilized after all—you haven't done any of those evil things you've dreamed about. You start to feel better about yourself. Until he brings the girlfriend with him to pick up the children. Then the idea of revenge returns. Maybe you could refuse to let the children see him or teach them to hate him, ignoring the terribly cruel effect that would have on your darlings. You start dating again; you'll show him you are desirable to others if not to him, even though the men you shack up with are losers.

You could take him to court over and over again, using up his resources-and yours. Except you don't have any money. The money he gives you for alimony and the kids is just a small percentage of his income. You of course have no skills because you've devoted yourself to keeping the household humming while he climbed the career ladder.

You think about begging him to come back, but if by some stretch «69»

of the imagination he did come back, you'd plot to poison the spaghetti sauce. But it wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to solve that mystery.

You get a cough that doesn't go away and your scalp itches. There doesn't seem to be any way to get the better of this guy. You pace at night, and before throwing yourself, exhausted, into bed, you scribble pages and pages of expletives in your journal. You pray you can get through this nightmare without losing your mind, but you are very close to losing it anyway.

You wonder what it would be like to lose your mind, to let everything slip away, to stay up in the attic and howl. It sounds tempting, oh so very tempting, and you try it for a day, but dammit, it just doesn't fit you. There is laundry to be done and dinner to be made.

You get this desperate feeling that there is nothing you can do.

You are helpless. He's got all the cards. He's won. It's not fair and you curse the patriarchal institutions: the government and legal system, religious authorities, Henry James, the Neanderthals. It's everybody else's fault you're in this mess. You go along like that for awhile, getting some satisfaction in complaining. But there's no revenge in it.

You wallow in self-pity and rage and grief and, God you are so tired.

You toy with the rocks-in-the-pocket way out, the gas range, the slit wrists.

But you're too squeamish.

You look at him: He's gone vegetarian, he's bought new clothes, and taken up yoga and spelunking. Every time you see him, he's got that sparkle in his eye. You know, the one you adored 30 years ago. You, on the other hand are grayer and fatter, you stutter, and you've got a limp.

Something's wrong with this picture, you think. Jesus, you're the one that wanted the "happily-ever-after," the Jane Austen ending, the "untildeath-do-you-part" thing. Yet, here you are, stuck somewhere between hell on earth and hell on earth.

One weekend, a weekend when the kids are with him, you close the window shades and sit on the easy chair and listen to the silence. You drink only water and eat chocolate for two days. You think. You think maybe you've got it wrong, that you've given him much more than the time of day.

You're still circling him like he's the sun and the moon and the stars at night, like he's peanut butter to your jelly.

Yeah. So you haul yourself back in to yourself and get busy. You brush your hair and take a walk. And you take your eyes off him. You definitely take your eyes off him. You make lists. You practice saying, "I want this, I want that."

And you go after whatever it is.

ÂŤ70Âť

If You Were She Alan Meyrowitz

If you were she, we would have had with breakfast tea your special crumpets made to please. Our joy would be to share a kiss with every raisin found.

By afternoon a passerby in Central Park would see two lovers, arms around.

As on each anniversary, dinner planned in China Town—though fortunes read would not portend what was to be.

Of course at night, your violin.

Your malady and all our fears would set your mood for somber strains.

Chords all too melodious would have us both of us on verge of tears.

Supposing one more night to share, we would feel blessed, if you were she.

I make no apology.

You try your best and I make do, but memories persist.

«71»

Rusty Bridge

Alexandria Gurko

«72»

Comedy

The Lamb Bash Carolyn Light Bell

"Uncle Merrill. You're looking fine this evening," teased Audrey.

Uncle Merrill was swaying in circles, supported by an extravagantly carved cane topped with a sterling silver parrot. His head was twirling like the ball on the end of a rope tied to a pole in the game of tetherball. Unlike a tetherball he was trying to speak, to find something clever to say, but couldn't quite locate words.

"That's a nice stick you have there. Is it new?" Audrey was shouting now, her face reddening. Apparently Merrill could neither hear nor understand.

"Watch," he said, peering out from caterpillar eyebrows over half-lidded eyes. He grasped the cane with one hand and, with immense concentration, unscrewed the parrot's head with the other hand. He proudly thrust the hollowed-out cane under his niece's nose.

"Ha-ha, Uncle Merrill! Is that a flask?"

"You betcha. I emptied it a few minutes ago. Pretty good, huh?"

Uncle Merrill could barely stand.

"Great!" she said, grinning and turning on her heels to escort me, the interloper, into the dining room.

"I had no idea you two were relatives," I said. Uncle Merrill is known to be one of the wealthiest men in the country. Her connection to him shed new light on her own entrepreneurialism, as well as her independence. It was further proof of the rumor that everyone around here is related in one way or another.

"Yes," she confided, "and the family drinks too much." We walked down the hallway in this, the oldest relic of upper-crust country-club life in the posh outskirts of Minneapolis. Dusty, satin draperies of a bilious green sagged from heavy brass rods. Worn carpeting was a nondescript beige. Furniture was sparse, since most interpersonal exchanges take place standing with martinis in hand. Even more tawdry is the unwritten policy of WASP-only membership.

Calligraphed placecards, situated at the tip of each carefully placed knife, indicated the host's purpose for us at this dinner party. I had my first clue about the formality of this gathering from the invitation we received six weeks in advance. It was an embossed invitation suitable for a wedding, requesting our presence at the "bash."

Wow, I thought, this is some fancy-schmancy do.

Harry was a new friend whom we'd met at another party. He was engaging, intelligent, funny. His technical savvy was far more up-to-date ÂŤ74Âť

than mine. People who expand my world are likely to become treasured friends. In fact Marshall and I invited him and his spouse and several others to our home for a mid-winter dinner party. It went off like fireworks— explosions of laughter, vivid color, over in a flash.

I comforted myself in advance with the notion that at Harry's party I could sit next to my friends, or at least people I knew. No such luck. Marshall and I were clumped with a bunch of braggarts and weirdos, four men and one woman, at the loser table. Marshall was seated across from me, too far away to be of consolation. There were two empty seats next to me for a couple who had decided, at the last minute, not to attend. Too bad. She was a childhood friend. I would have enjoyed seeing her again. I struggled through the first 15 minutes of dinner listening to tales of courtroom triumphs from a short, bald attorney named Richard, whose swollen face and pudgy fingers showed nary a sign of hardship. His narrative of legal conquests carried me through a salad of baby greens, nuts, berries, and cheese. I checked the winner table across the room. Audrey & Co. were hysterical with laughter and what I was sure were hilarious tales.

When Richard's tape wore down and a beautifully presented plate of rack of lamb, asparagus, and whipped potatoes arrived, he released me to the convoluted meanderings of a retired executive, Tom. Tom's uncombed, matted hair and crooked, slightly drooling mouth indicated he'd been dragged out of bed and hoped to return soon. Spots on his tie had assumed various shapes that appeared to be historical discolorations. His sport jacket was rumpled at the lapels; his tie was askew. I was afraid to look directly into his eyes, fearing what other signs of disturbance I might find, so I focused on my food. The lamb was sublime, the asparagus delicate, the potatoes soft as a baby's bottom. The combination melted on my tongue as easily as a chocolate truffle. Tom's unintelligible banter made little sense despite several startovers. It was hard to find a second between his pauses to place word offerings at his altar where at one time, who knows, he might have directed thousands in his purview to meteoric heights.

By the third course Tom's wife noticed me and promptly patted the chair next to her, motioning for me to sit next to her. I was grateful to move out of earshot from the blowhard attorney and Snow White's dwarf Dopey's doppelganger. I looked at her fancily scrolled nametag: Martha, it said. Of Mary and Martha, no doubt.

"I heard you telling Richard that you're teaching at Drek School now instead of Dake," she began. "Why did you leave Dake?"

"Well, Martha, I like Drek because there's a kind of spiritual atmosphere there."

"Oh!" she squealed. "I'm so very glad to hear you say that! Ever since they replaced Dake's chapel with a library, I've been suspicious! They should have kept the chapel, don't you think?"

«75»

"But the new media center is beautiful, full of the latest technology.

They preserved the wood paneling and stained-glass windows. They kept the old traditional atmosphere. In fact I think they're showing reverence to education by filling it with tools of learning. Anyway, the media center is not the reason I left Dake."

"Reverence?" She furrowed her brow, which was otherwise smooth and untroubled.

"Yes, reverence for meditation and scholarship."

"But they didn't keep the cross. We need a cross."

"A cross? The school is supposed to be nondenominational."

"Yes. A big cross, made of raw wood, to remind us how Jesus suffered long and horribly. For us. And we should never forget it."

"Well, not everyone at the school believes that Jesus died for our sins. Or that he was the son of God, for that matter. Some people think he was just a guy—a prophet, a somewhat prescient prophet, but still... a guy."

"They certainly ought to believe. They'll be sorry come Judgment Day. I'm a true believer." She paused, then smiled, a glow of earnest pride radiating from her brow. She sighed and settled back into the chair. "I'm a fundamentalist Christian Republican."

"Really? Huh. I'm a left-wing Jewish Democrat!"

"Jewish? O-oooohhhhh! Well, God loves you." She patted me on the arm. The waiter brought a blue, frosted glass of fruit laced heavily with liqueur custard.

I dug in. "No kidding? How do you know that?"

"It's in the Bible, dear. God loves you." She patted me on the arm again. I put my arm in my lap, out of her reach.

"Funny, I don't have a picture of God as a person who loves or doesn't love certain people. I think of God as a spirit," I offered.

"Oh, no, dear. You're the chosen ones."

"Who? Chosen for what?" Where was she going with this? If we were chosen, where did that leave her? How could she live with herself being unchosen? Was this her idea of humility?

"All you Jews. You're special."

There it was. All you people. You're the special ones. So special you could ride the short bus, the one that carries the handicapped. And we'll arrive at Scotland before ye. "I believe God includes everyone. Chooses everyone. You included," I replied. I'm not letting her off that easy.

"No. It's you and your people who have a special place in his heart.

Tell all your friends."

What exactly is that special place? "All my friends?" I said.

"Yes, your Jewish friends. Be sure to let them know how special they are."

I poured her some water, planning an exit strategy. God help me.

«76»

Uncle Merrill seemed to have lost his way to the men's room and was about to sit down at our table when Richard guided him by the elbow out the door. God help us all.

"And don't forget to let them know we're going to find Noah's Ark."

She isn't done with me yet. "Find Noah's Ark?" What's that got to do with Jews being special? Is she planning some kind of reduction of our seed?

Down to two of everyone. Perhaps a more practical approach... "Don't you think Noah's Ark was made of wood?"

"Why, yes." Martha fluttered her eyelashes coyly.

"But then don't you think it smashed to smithereens on a big rock somewhere?" I smacked one palm against another to simulate loud slapping I've witnessed among Tibetan Buddhist monk initiates when they think they've reached a profound point of logic.

"Oh, no, the ark is still around."

Martha isn't buying it "Where?"

"Only God knows. And God will decide when we're ready to see it again. It's proof of God's creation. But we're not ready for it yet. There are still too many folks who believe in evolution. "

"You don't believe in evolution? No finches? No Darwin?"

"Work of the devil. Have you ever heard of a dog mating with a cat?" The comers of Martha's mouth turned down into a smirk and her lower jaw locked.

"No, can't say as I have." I was picturing the local tabby cat named Flo and Bernese Mountain Dog named Bubba engaged in copulation.

"There you go! Precisely my point!" She broke out in a beatific smile.

Maybe if I tossed the dice one more time. "Because a dog doesn't mate with a cat-that proves there's no evolution?"

"Of course! Don't you see? God created all creatures separate. If he'd meant for us to mate with apes, we'd be doing it. When was the last time you heard of a person and an ape having a baby?" Michael Jackson's chimp Bubbles came to mind.

"Humanoids and apes have common ancestry, but we evolved into different species. DNA reveals we have few genetic differences from apes," I ever so carefully articulated each word.

"Evolutionists dreamed up DNA to get rich."

I was truly stumped now. Yes, she told me, God loves everybody, so why shouldn't she? Quite possibly our host had placed Martha and me at the same table as a malevolent joke. I refuse to buy into his perversity. I will leave this dinner party with my dignity and my humor intact, lamb or no lamb.

"I like that dress you have on," I expostulated.

"Yes, it's very old. I found it in my closet." Martha touched her collar and blushed a little. My ruse had worked. ÂŤ77Âť

"It looks like a Carole Little. I used to love that designer but she went out of business." Girl talk. That's it. "I love the colors she used," I went on. I released myself from the weight of responsibility to fix her. It dropped to the floor with a thud. We can be friends for the next half hour and never recognize each other again, even if we're standing in the same line at the floral shop.

"I don't know who that designer is," she said.

"It looks very nice on you. Carole Little designed clothes of motley colors and varying designs. Very playful. Sort of like Joseph's dreamcoat."

"Clothes like Joseph wore?"

"Yes. I think so. But I'm not sure Carole Little was thinking of that when she created the design of your dress," I said.

She smiled at me. "Look at the label." She reached behind her and held up the back of her dress at the neck. "What does it say?" she queried in a gesture of feminine conspiracy. We’re best friends now, bonding over a dress label.

I peered at the label. "It says Joseph."

"No kidding?" She giggled.

"No, it's really Joseph's sister, Carole. Maybe you and he have something in common. Maybe you were chosen, not the Jews." Oh-oh. Now I'm making light of a serious matter.

"Only on the surface. My brothers are very good to me. My brothers would never cast me into the desert. We run a resort."

"Lucky for you."

"No. We're still one big happy family. One of them, Ned, married a Muslim girl, and we treat her just like she's one of us. At Christmas time we give her a present, just like we do for each other. At Easter, if she doesn't want to go to church, we don't push it or force her to go. Her breath gets just terrible when she fasts for Ramadan, but we don't hold it against her.

I just keep my distance. Lucky they don't have any children yet, because I don't know how I'd feel about having my grandchildren praying on a napkin and facing East every few minutes."

"Mmmm," I said. "Dessert's wonderful, isn't it?"

"Yes, aren't we lucky to have such a feast?"

At another table Uncle Merrill scraped back his chair and wobbled to his feet.

"Like to make a 'nouncement! All hear this!"

The room of 50 or so guests hushed. Uncle Merrill had a reputation for bombast.

"Jes lak to say our host outdid himself. Only thing was the lamb was undercooked! Raw. But I ate it anyway since it was free. So les' raise our glasses to the host. Bottoms up."

A mixture of silence followed by clinking of glasses and polite «78»

applause followed: The chair from which he had initially unseated himself served as a source of reconnection for his posterior, which might just as easily have landed on the floor.

Our generous host remained seated and boomed out with all the strength and respectability of a kind heart, "I have been told it's far better to serve lamb delicately cooked than too well done. I thank you for your attendance one and all."

Louder applause ensued. It was time to quit our chairs. I smiled generously and crossed over to Marshall, grasping his hand. We proceeded to the window by the door, where a table of our friends, Audrey and others, perched at the winning table, falling off their chairs, laughing uproariously at some wild story. Their bright rainbows of wit spread an arc of splendor over a sadly fading decor.

ÂŤ79Âť

Rock Garden Zen Elizabeth Elfring

Rake marks precise, no hesitation, strong, boldly executed.

Rocks placed in some feng shui pattern, meaning only known to the maker.

Formed art in its own capacity.

Single boulders grace the landscape too, farther between and wonderfully shaped they rise in greeting; "Hail, I am existence" Change daily is no chore for this master gardener.

Each day brings new goals, calm and purpose.

Each day this master of humanity stakes his claim on my time.

Each day I clean the litter box.

ÂŤ80Âť

Nature

Cherry Springs State Park Michael Prykowski

«82»

The History of Clouds, Traveling Stanley Morris Noah

They come and go And return toward us For us Like ancient migrations Walking out of Africa With agile winds pushing Sails Up and down the meandering Vains Of Langston Hughes' rivers.

ÂŤ83Âť

Watching Chickens Run Catherine McGuire

like a plump dowager might hike her skirt and stagger on high heels like a stubby tugboat might breast the swell and wobble in the troughs or a troubadour fleeing the come-home husband lurch over benches and pails my fluffy-thighed hens alarmed high-tail through the clover bounce, bounce, leap— matronly dignity left behind with the bee.

«84»

You See Your Children Susan G. Duncan

as planets, a plotted constellation, and these happy spinning bodies sort their ellipses around your steady heavy self.

Solar, center.

Grave responsibility gravity.

When you do it well, they never feel your pull— just the joyous sling outward, the rapture of ricochet back past you.

Whereas I am geology and geologist, careful watcher for outcroppings and subtle patterns of erosion.

I favor the subterranean— the beneath-story told layer after slow sedimentary layer through volcanic interruption and glacial formation.

I'm not the deepest layer, the antediluvian— a later layer.

You spin them and they know weightlessness, revolution.

But I don't mind the weight nor the evolution since ash becomes obsidian, and crystals form in cavities when heat and weight and luck conspire— and we are geode.

«85»

Norwegian and Ponderosa Pines Tim Williams

I gaze at my Norwegian pines, my still spindly nude red maple, hear robins sing loud melodies.

Yard grass flattens on muddy ground melting from winter snows, rains, detect green eager to burst out.

I glimpse another point in time riding on serpentine trail crawling up to mountaintop.

I smell sweat from horses, resins from ponderosa pines, hear creaking crackles of leather from polished saddles, realize I am stuck behind a gelding nowhere to go but straight, helpless as it unloads onto the trail.

My senses tingle at the bucolic scene spread before me soon forgotten or with details transformed to fuzzy strokes like an impressionist's painting while I evoke sights, sounds, smells played before man reached the moon.

ÂŤ86Âť

Dead Bat in a Bottle J. Richard McLaughlin

Furry pickle on a shelf, They could at least have been decent enough to put you in there right side up, but I suppose this position is more natural for sleeping.

I imagine they birthed you in a box, or a test tube perhaps, If they had just come across you lying on the road you would be much too disheveled for display.

I'm sure you've spent all your life in boxes and cages, until you finally ended up preserved in a jar, Even so, you're not looking too good right now, wings clenched, ears folded back in irritation, filled with acrid pickling liquid that must make it difficult to hear the muted voices of your occasional admirers as they gawk, not to mention what it's done to your fur.

None of them know your name, if you have one, I hope the thin pin that kissed you goodnight was gentle and considerate, I hope your eyes are closed, so that you won't have to spend the rest of your nap staring at some shelf through a pillow of glass, I hope they open the bottle and pour you out when they're finally through with you.

ÂŤ87Âť

Aspen Grove Chorales Tim Williams

From one grows a grove of clones to rise up, to worship aloud under warm, golden beams.

Slender silvery lean trunks assemble upon meadow floors like church choirs upon tiered stages preparing to sing.

Green leaves swivel in frenzied clapping circles, raising vocal harmonies around elemental melodies whenever mountain winds cascade through valley.

If not us, who would feel breezy turmoil tearing through spindly branches, hear their chorales, witness their frantic leaves gesturing wildly like thousands of hands waving, pleading for attention?

ÂŤ88Âť

Relentless Changes Tim Williams

Colors change hues that roll up and down valley and hill in a relentless march, in a gaily repetitive annual plan.

A cacophony of crisp winds carry tunes of panic among Pan's pagan pals who blow their last hurried notes before the icy breezes come.

Trees release leaves for winter's arrival, yet some refuse the calling cling on branch tips, doggedly lag behind.

Their skeletons lie on the ground await strong gales to sweep them away to a rotting, restful place where they nurture soil, fertilize future.

ÂŤ89Âť

Snail

Sandy Anderson

The whorls of the shell continue all the way down my throat.

This makes it difficult for my tongue to emerge, to speak.

But as I slither down the road, I leave a trail that shines in the moonlight.

ÂŤ90Âť

The Land of Little Rain James M. Moose

A score of mountain walls bestride the Land of Little Rain, arrest the rains that haply come their way, and send infrequent streams – to make amends for injury – onto the sere, subservient soils beneath.

And in the mountains' vaulted choirs a muted music forms, distilled from sky and played on phantom granite flutes, that courses softly down defiles, then spreads across the desert sands, and sounds a note of latent hope.

«91»

The Birdwatcher Alan Meyrowitz

There was a time I would have smiled to see a bird so rare: a Steller's Jay back and forth upon a branch, purple breast, bobbing head, feathers flaring to impress a mate-to-be.

The puffing throat gave out a song of cheer, brought to mind a melody once sung in voice that spoke of love and being free.

I strained to see through eyes now come to tears.

Notebook closed, my day was done.

One bird, two notes:

Emma would have loved this one.

It sang as she would sing to me.

ÂŤ92Âť

Wooden Bridge John Furphy

«93»

Memories

My Story Is All I Have Chuck Tripi

Maybe Latin was the fog I landed in, algebra the clear next day, things happen like this. Still, for many years I felt as if flung by time, out, out from its hot center, by quake or eruption, like a billion seeds to the rich, turned earth, somehow yearning just to feed you and to set you free, all of the metaphors, not just this one mixed. It was the best I could do, the best I could do it, one by one, as rocks piled on a beam of light, removed.

I have felt this way too—deprived, existentialistic and afraid, but light— light is my original condition, I insist upon this, I remember it.

«95»

One Day Every Day Tim Williams

I peer out the window of my mud-walled house, a window with no pane, a window with wooden shutters thrown open to let in light, a cool morning breeze to cleanse the stuffy interior of my two-room home.

My neighbors start their day washing their hands, face, and feet. Women start charcoal fires to roast bunna, coffee beans, a dark, deep brown, others start to pound grains into submission, whump, whump. Men meander down the road greet each other, tell jokes, make light of yesterday's musings.

Burros laden with wood, corcoros, cans of water plod through the dirt road all with the same tired aspect, wander off to the side of the street as if lost, but really wanting a rest. Red, fine dust clouds form above the road, above homes, stores, above the town to remain there all day until late night.

I listen to everyone speaking Oromo, a melodious language that seems to roll out of speakers' mouths as if springwater splashing on a flat rock. I take a deep breath of culture, custom, and repetition.

ÂŤ96Âť

Dublin Pilgrimage: Bringing Mercy into Focus Beth Harrison

Shamrocks, Irish dancing, Irish potatoes, pubs, freshly cut green grass, sheep, cloudy weather, and scenic coastal lines. This is a list of some things that usually come to people's minds immediately when they think about the Emerald Isle, but there are other aspects that make this island so beautiful, yet heartbreaking.

Back in February of 2011, I received an amazing opportunity from my college to participate in a Dublin Pilgrimage. A selected group of college students and faculty members were invited to travel from the United States to Belfast, Northern Ireland and Dublin, Ireland. During the pilgrimage, we would learn about merciful leadership and the histories of both countries.

I was so excited and kept thinking about this traveling adventure everyday for the next six months until we would fly overseas in August. My first impressions of Ireland were always positive—mainly the scenic coast lines and green grass. But I didn't know I would become so emotionally connected with the cities of Belfast and Dublin until I learned of their unique histories and experienced their diverse cultures.

We flew from JFK airport on August 5, 2011 to Dublin's airport, and arrived there around 5: 15 A.M. Dublin time. Since Ireland is five hours ahead of eastern time in the United States, it took a while to adjust to the different time zone. Once we landed in Dublin, the group of pilgrims traveled by bus to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The bus ride filled my tired self with sudden excitement and intrigue over the landscape. The sky was cloudy but the fields were so richly green. There were sheep and horses in some of these fields as well. I could see this view for miles upon miles as we drove towards Belfast.

When we first arrived in Belfast, I noticed how industrial the city looked from our view at the Farset International Hostel. The Farset International, which is where we stayed in Northern Ireland, is located in an area of peace in the capital city of Belfast. Belfast has been a city heavily affected by a period of history from the late 1960s-1998 known as "The Troubles." The Troubles mainly involved violence between Protestants and Catholics, as well as nationalists and unionists. Even though Protestants and Catholics dislike each other's religious beliefs, The Troubles was more of a political issue. Nationalists want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland. Unionists want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. A peace process has begun ever since "The Troubles" officially ended, but the people of Northern Ireland are still working towards a peaceful existence among one another today. The peace process «97»

can be a daily struggle for the Northern Ireland people of all generations, but Belfast has definitely made positive progress since the time of The Troubles.

While our group visited Northern Ireland, we mainly toured the city of Belfast and the northern coast towards Giants Causeway. First, we participated in a walking tour and a bus tour of Belfast to explore the city's noteworthy murals, peace walls, memorials, and famous landmarks. One of these landmarks includes the Titanic's Dock Drive, where the Titanic was built. These tours helped us to better understand its history. I kept noticing numerous murals, which depicted Northern Ireland's interesting history, displayed on one building after another. As we were sightseeing in Belfast, what struck a chord with my heart the most was Belfast's peace walls and gates. The peace walls continue to divide many Protestant and Catholic areas while gates are used to open and close some neighborhoods. Most neighborhoods with gates have them closed on the weekends in order to prevent any violence from occurring between Catholics and Protestants.

One day, a smaller group of us was walking back towards our hostel, and we weren't totally sure which streets to take. A man saw our confused faces, and offered to give us a ride to the hostel because he thought we were Protestants. Unbeknownst to us, we were in a Protestant area of Belfast.

Since he was a stranger and we were in a foreign city, we politely declined.

While walking, we realized that certain streets were gated because it was the weekend. These gated streets made it more difficult for us as tourists to find our way back to the hostel. In addition to these blocked neighborhoods, Catholics and Protestants walk on different sides of the city's streets. We chose to take a taxi back to the hostel instead of walking, and arrived there safely.

It gives me chills just thinking how divided Belfast's people really are among one another, even though they are gradually progressing towards peace. Besides the disputes there, Belfast really does have amazing natural beauty to its landscape, which is why this city is one of my favorite places I have ever seen.

Next, our group visited Giant's Causeway on the northern coast of Northern Ireland. While traveling north, we saw the gorgeous green grass, sheep, cattle, coastlines, and small towns along the way. This was the moment when I thought to myself ''Now I'm definitely in Ireland." These images were exactly how I envisioned the Emerald Isle.

Located in Antrim County, Giant's Causeway is a breathtaking area of about 40,000 basalt columns, which was a result of ancient volcanic eruption. Most of these columns are hexagonal, and serve as a popular tourist attraction worldwide. The scenery of rocks, cliffs, coastlines, and waters was beautiful as we were walking the winding trails to the majority of these columns. It was cloudy in the morning but very windy throughout ÂŤ98Âť

the day. We were trying to see Scotland across the waters, but it was too cloudy to spot the country. As we were climbing these columns, I felt like I was on top of the world. I remember how much I appreciated the land all around me, and am thankful to have visited this natural reserve site. I am definitely recommending Giant's Causeway as a place to see before you die; it's just that spectacular.

After our time at Giant's Causeway came to an end, our group traveled to Corrymeela Ballycastle, a retreat center which works with people towards reconciliation and living in a peaceful community among one another. Located along the northern coast, Corrymeela is a safe space for children, teenagers, adults, and families of all ages who have been troubled by the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants as well as Nationalists and Unionists. They come to Corrymeela to build positive relationships with others affected by the struggles. When I saw some of those people engaging in conversations with one another, I realized that I took my religion for granted sometimes, and I needed to appreciate the freedom I have to practice Catholicism in the United States without judgment. Spending some time there really helped me to value my beliefs.

When we arrived back to Belfast that evening, we noticed an interesting, yet huge bonfire built with piles of wood and covered with British flags. I learned later on that this tall bonfire was created by Belfast citizens protesting Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; rather, they want to become one with Ireland. While we were in a taxi going to a local pub that night, we saw the effects of the burning bonfire. Many people were hollering and fighting in the streets, which made it a busy night for Belfast police. Even though more bonfires were constructed and lit that night, we were safe in our travels to a popular pub. Our group enjoyed the genuine Irish pub atmosphere, and even met really nice local people there. When we left the pub to get a taxi ride back to the Farset International Hostel, our taxi driver asked us if he could take us there a roundabout way, due to the chaos from bonfires throughout the popular city streets. Since we wanted to be as safe as possible in an unfamiliar city, we were fine with his judgment and got to our hostel safely. That night out helped me realize how lucky we were as Americans to witness these unusual bonfire sights and experience the Irish pub culture.

The next place we traveled is Dublin, Ireland. Before we even arrived in Dublin, my first impression of this city was that it would be the heart of Ireland. Even though we were sad to leave Belfast, I was excited to visit such a popular Irish city. Our group stayed at a place called Abbey Court Hostel, which is located along the River Liffey in Dublin. Eight girls and I from my group were placed to sleep in a giant room with ten other girls from Misericordia University and Mount Aloysius. Just imagine one room with nineteen total girls staying in it, and only three bathrooms and ÂŤ99Âť

showers to share among other rooms on the same floor. This was our living situation for the next four days in Dublin.

The main purpose of our pilgrimage was to participate in a threeday conference called MIA Young Mercy Leaders Pilgrimage, which was at the Mercy International Centre in Dublin. This is where Catherine McAuley and the Sisters of Mercy originated and grew to serve others. The three-day conference occurred on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the week.

On our first day, there was an opening ceremony to welcome all schools involved at the conference. Students from Mercy schools in the United States, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia participated in this pilgrimage. Throughout the days at the conference, there were various breakout sessions, which were interesting workshops that taught diverse lessons connecting with Catherine McAuley's mission.

One of the sessions I attended was called "What Do I Do with My One & Wild Life?" This discussion was about discernment, and that the majority of our decisions are made and felt by the heart. The next session, which was inspired by a song from the band, The Killers, was called "Are We Human Dr Are We Dancer?" It taught me that life should not be choreographed. Our hearts are always uplifted by music, and we should show our personalities through dancing and singing at anytime. Along with various breakout sessions, participants also received a tour of the Mercy International Centre to learn more about the Sisters of Mercy and Catherine McAuley. Since we learned a lot about McAuley and the Sisters of Mercy from courses taught at Gwynedd-Mercy College, it was amazing to actually see in person where they began their work.

We also heard Marilyn Lacey, RSM, who started the organization Mercy Beyond Borders, give a speech about noticing God's presence through her experiences with refugees in Sudan. Lacey shared her three life stances with us: God is always here but usually undercover; We become more welcoming when we expect to meet God; Great joy awaits us when we welcome God in a stranger. The conference's participants were also treated to a student talent show. Students from these Mercy schools displayed talents such as singing, dancing, and comedy routines. It was wonderful meeting students from Mercy institutions worldwide who have similar goals and personality traits. The conference was an experience I will truly treasure forever.

When there was some free time on conference days, our group chose to walk the streets of Dublin to explore the shops and pubs on practically every comer. We were fascinated by all of the shops that displayed different items with a Celtic influence, such as wool sweaters and antique jewelry. One of the shops I enjoyed was a souvenir shop called Carroll's, which sold clothing and other items related to Ireland and Dublin.

Since pubs are a major part of the Irish culture, we also decided to enter ÂŤ100Âť

various pubs to experience their environments. For example, one night we went to an Irish dancing show in a pub next door to the Abbey Court Hostel. On another night, some of our group members participated in a karaoke session at another pub. Our free time on conference days allowed us to experience Dublin's daily lifestyle.

The last day of our trip was considered a free day. Our entire group explored the city of Dublin, but the majority of us decided to participate in a hop on and hop off city tour bus. This bus made stops at Dublin's most popular tourist attractions throughout the day. Some of the places we visited include St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Phoenix Park, and Kilmainham Gaol. We also passed by places like Trinity College, the Dublin Writer's Museum, the Guiness Storehouse, the River Liffey, and the Temple Bar area. Afterwards, some of us did some shopping around the streets near our hostel before our group went to Mass and dinner. I couldn't believe how many interesting shops there were in Dublin. After buying some more clothing, we all got ready for mass and made our way to a Catholic church called St. Teresa's Church. This church was hidden away on a side street off of Clarendon Street, which is popular for its shops. Once we entered the church, it was so big and beautiful. The singing at mass was one of the most powerful things I had ever heard.

After a great mass, our group went to dinner at a place called Gallagher's Boxty House. It featured a lot of traditional Irish food as well as other common foods. Once we were done eating dinner, we went to The Elephant Castle for dessert, which was an eating place next door to Gallagher's Boxty House. We had gone there on our first night in Dublin for food, and we enjoyed their desserts so much that we knew we had to revisit it one last time before we left Dublin. I chose to eat a dessert called Murder by Chocolate. It was one of the best tasting desserts I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I can still remember how great it tasted, and continue to crave it from time to time. Then, we experienced the Irish pub atmosphere for our last time. We just decided to spend the majority of our night at a pub we grew to really love, which was called the Merchant's Arch.

I remember thinking that night how fortunate I was to experience all of this. I wouldn't have changed it any other way. It can be difficult spending about an entire week with people of different personalities, but overall it was an incredible life-changing pilgrimage.

The next morning, which was August 14, we left our hostel to go to the Dublin Airport and flew back to JFK Airport in the United States.

Even though it was great to be home again, I already missed Ireland and Northern Ireland. I still miss the whole pilgrimage experience. I find myself looking through photographs a couple times a month that our group took while we were there. I have a couple of goals now that I have visited these places. I wish to travel back one day to Belfast, Giant's Causeway, and ÂŤ101Âť

Dublin to see if their environments have changed in any way. Also, I want to communicate how much progress Northern Ireland has made towards peace among its citizens, but that there is still major conflict in the country.

Northern Ireland hardly receives any attention in America's news coverage, so I want to share their current progress and struggles to as many people possible.

The Dublin Pilgrimage will always have a special place in my heart.

As Catherine McAuley once said, "If we are humble and sincere, God will finish in us the work He has begun. He never refuses His grace to those who ask it." I hope to continue sharing this experience with others so that they can be inspired to travel and recognize the wonderful work done around the world.

ÂŤ102Âť

Homage to a Junkyard Elizabeth Elfring

Lifeless shells lie waiting to be plundered.

Knowing they'll never again ride on the open road as one.

Organ donors, waiting for parts to be pilfered for a new life.

Ford, Buick, Pontiac and Jeep, neighbors sharing space.

Sharing past glories of speed.

Reckless abandonment of rules and regulations.

Recklessness that led to eternity in the junkyard.

Pieces of automated souls tossed aside.

Souls of the transportation age, of freedom, souls of past lives, past loves.

Junkyard souls finding a place to gather.

Junkyard souls waiting and hoping.

Hoping for new bodies.

Fog lights, headlights, distributors and cams, headrest, steering wheels.

All waiting for the chance to again ride in splendor.

A chance for just a part to feel the freedom of the open road.

A part, any part, longing to become one with another soul.

ÂŤ103Âť

Candles

Alysha Munsey

«104»

Death

The Wreck John Grey

A lump of metal, it was.

Had to scour the squashed in trunk to see it was a Chevy.

I heard the kid died but the mother didn't spill a drop of her hot coffee.

It was early morning and foggy and they didn't have their lights on so the truck didn't see them.

I'm thinking, when it's my time, I want to float down a river like Ophelia, not be crumpled, busted up, my head a bloody dartboard of windshield shards.

I'd prefer the soft rhythm of the current coaxing me gently into darkness rather than the violent burst through death's front door.

And there's the woman gripping tight to her coffee to be dealt with.

There's that moment before she sees the bloody corpse beside her when she exhales, is thinking, "Thank God, we made it."

That was the day a Chevy gave birth to a coffee cup.

ÂŤ106Âť

The Queen of Hearts Janice Alonso

She put everything into boxes. I lifted the lid of a large tin with polar bears draped in red and green plaid Christmas scarves, fat snowflakes drifting in the background. The tin clung to the scent of stale ginger snaps.

Inside the tin lay two paper clips, a receipt from CVS (dated June 3, 1995), a blue rubber band, and a small measuring tape. That was my sister for you, never enough time or motivation to deal with things at hand. Her philosophy: hide them somewhere and hopefully she'd remember where they were when and if she ever needed them again, or maybe they'd simply go away and save her the hassle of ever having to deal with them at all.

She'd also stashed a blank insurance form, a smooth emery board, a key chain with no keys, a grocery list, and a scrap of paper with some figures added and the sum circled. There was also a playing card: the Queen of Hearts.

I sighed. She'd stolen so many hearts. She had indeed been everyone's friend, flitting through life along the path of least resistance, skirting confrontations, and making nice to all. You can afford to be nice when someone's always there to sweep up behind you. As much as I wanted to shake my sister senseless right now for leaving me with this mess to clean up, she had stolen my heart as well.

We grew up as the only children of late-life parents. I was older by only one year, but early on I recognized I was the one who was in charge, had to be in charge, and would always be in charge. She was the baby. With blond ringlets framing soft blue eyes and long dark lashes, Adrienne learned from the start how to use her family birth order and looks to her advantage.

It started when we were little girls. Mama would say it was time to put away the toys. I'd begin returning the crayons one-by-one to the Crayola box. Adrienne would snatch them away and throw them into a cigar box.

"That takes way too lo-o-ong." she'd moan, her lips tugging downward into a pout.

Then like a nimble sprite, she'd whisk up things willy-nilly and pitch them into our cedar toy chest or shove them under the bed.

"But how will we ever find them?" I'd protest as I tried to bring a smidgen of order to the growing expanse of chaos.

"We'll do it later," she'd shoot back, "when we have time."

And that's the way Adrienne had lived her life, in a rush toward the time where she'd have time. ÂŤ107Âť

In the tin I also found an athletic sock with a hole in the toe, a past due department store bill, a napkin from Java Joe's, and the top half of a ballpoint pen. I pinched the bridge of my nose with a thumb and forefmger and squeezed my eyes shut. The beginnings of a migraine tingled at the back of my neck. What was the sense of any of this? I should just trash the entire lot, call 1-800-GOT -JUNK, but I couldn't. Unlike Adrienne, I felt a responsibility to comb through and organize her...death? I still could not connect "death" to bouncy, happy Adrienne.

Throughout childhood, I cleaned up her messes. First it was our room; then it was school. She was a bright and capable student, making all A's and B' s without exerting any effort on her day-to-day assignments. It was the projects that caused her, or rather me, the most distress.

"You better start collecting those rocks soon," I'd said one early March day shortly after she'd brought home a paper explaining her spring quarter science project. Adrienne had been in eighth grade at the time and had just discovered the first love-of-her-life, Nick DiMatto. The mimeographed sheet lay somewhere beneath the pile of papers fanned across her desk.

"Why start so early? I've got six weeks 'til it's due." She'd shrugged, opened the newest issue of Glamour magazine, and thumbed to the section showing the latest styles in haircuts. She'd shivered and pulled the afghan tighter around her shoulders. "Besides, it's so cold in March. April will be soon enough."

March's temperatures hadn't been too low to stop her from rendezvous with Nick. Each afternoon after school, and on weekends as well I should add, they'd meet behind the tool shed and sneak unfiltered Camels. What my sister had really meant was that she didn't want to deal with the project, period.

Of course, two days before the assignment was due, I was the one out in the April showers in the role of roaming geologist. When I brought the rocks home and began the process of cleaning and sorting the finds, it was then Adrienne actually read the directions and saw she needed to write where and when she'd found each rock, and give a brief explanation as to why she'd chosen that particular specimen. She also discovered the assignment required she display her project on a one foot by two foot piece of plywood with the collection sealed in clear shellac. We spent the next two days inventing stories for each rock and preparing the board. It was the start of me becoming the author of a tome of stories to explain or cover for Adrienne's "inactivities."

I should have realized then that I was as bad as or worse than my sister. In effect I was becoming her biggest box. Things she didn't want to deal with herself, she stored in my box, knowing full-well I would sort them out. And she was my sister, so how could I let her fail? ÂŤ108Âť

When Adrienne began dating, I took responsibility for her bad choices, getting her out of situations when she wanted to back out of a date at the last minute. When a cute boy had a "dud" friend, I was the one who'd double with her. When she decided at the last minute she just couldn't possibly go out with Mr.-Less-Than-Channing, I became the excuse she needed to cancel her plans.

Later I was the one she appealed to and moved in with when her first, second, and third marriages wavered and finally collapsed. It was a lost cause to remind her that I had pointed out Charlie's infidelities, Philip's addictions, and by far the worst, Marlin's abusive reactions. She'd been so in love with each man at the time of his proposal, she'd merely shoved these warnings into her relationship box: safely hidden away in there she could perhaps change these men, or their short-comings would simply fade away until they disappeared all together.

After Mama's death, and later Daddy's, Adrienne couldn't deal with their funerals or their estates, nor their jammed-packed attic, closets, and drawers. She was a great follower that Adrienne, once I'd agreed to take command. Then she would perform a few minor tasks until my exasperation settled down, but gradually things would slip back into my box. Sometimes in the eleventh hour, if we were in the direst of straits, she'd come dashing in like a ninja with a sword, and make restitution for her lost days of wallowing in indecisiveness.

My eyes focused on one of the smiling polar bears and then I tossed the tin and its contents in the trash. I lifted my head upward and studied the boxes stacked to the ceiling of her walk-in closet. My head spun: boxes and boxes to sort through. Even then, Adrienne, even after you knew Death had come knocking, couldn't you have sifted through a few boxes for me?

My sister didn't just hide things and relationships: she sniggled away decisions into the imaginary boxes of her mind, like the times she'd known her jobs were being phased out. Rather than update her resume and send out feelers to perspective employers, she'd opted to sit tight and wait it out to see what might happen. Perhaps the company might change its mind about moving its headquarters to another state; perhaps the merger might mean a new position for her...perhaps? Did you really believe that, Adrienne?

And what about the day the local newspaper ran an article outlining proposals for the building of super-sized strip malls around her neighborhood? She'd refused to list her house, hoping the commercial zoning would fail, and ended up selling her house for a pittance after her fellow neighbors had long since moved.

Then there was the time a towering pine leaned a little too close toward her house.

"Adrienne, you should call a tree company and have that pine ÂŤ109Âť

removed," I'd nagged for the ninety-ninth time.

"You're such a pessimist...it's leaned like that for years," she'd responded and tapped a pack of cigarettes against her wrist.

The following spring a tornado brushed by and the tree came crashing down: onto the roof, into the dining room, breaking Grandmother's china, and ruining the needlepoint chair covers handstitched by great Aunt Alice. Adrienne had cried for weeks.

There were all kinds of boxes in my sister's life. People she didn't want to deal with, she simply avoided. News she didn't want to hear, she chose not to repeat. Facts she didn't like, she shoved into the darkest alcoves of her mind. To sights that didn't please her, she closed her eyes and turned her head.

She baked cookies for the bedridden, but never acknowledged their diseases.

She donated clothes to the homeless, but never felt their coldness.

She supported the war against Iraq, but never absorbed its vibrations.

And when asked, the Queen of Hearts would smile and say that life was fine, just fine.

That is, until the day she had to

acknowledge the persistent cough,

see the shadow on her lung in the x-ray,

feel the prick of the chemo drip.

Then Pandora's Box exploded in her face.

And I became the one who learned about hiding.

I pushed away all thoughts of a life about to come to an end. I denied an existence without my sister. I pretended there'd be an eternity of boxes to sort through. I believed there'd always be an Adrienne for me to rescue. I looked at the tin balanced on the top of the trash heap. I retrieved it and returned the tin to its original slot. Leaving the closet, I walked into Adrienne bedroom and picked up the box with her remains on the dresser. I gently lifted the lid and inhaled the sweet scent of her death.

Hugging the box into my chest, I let the anger and resentment float out of my heart. Finally, I could cry for my sister.

The End

ÂŤ110Âť

Quantum Death: Chapter 1 (Excerpt) Justin Boyer

My stare was listless, my life was devastatingly blank. I'd been staring at the same white walls for nearly an hour or so. During that time, I had conjured many fantastical shapes by reinterpreting the shadows on the wall. Anything was better than just staring at the walls for what they were: empty.

A sudden knock on the door assaulted my ears. I immediately jumped up, and groped for the doorknob to the door that I seldom opened. This was my apartment, and the last thing I needed was unwanted interruption from dozens of so-called sympathizers.

Opening the door exhausted me, even more than sitting and aimlessly staring at the "wall of dread," while downing vodka from flask that was perpetually open. Beyond the threshold, I discovered a man of rather large bearing literally staring ghoulishly at me. His face was completely dark, and indecipherable.

"Who the fuck are you, and why are you here? "I shouted at the man of unknown origins with sheer drunken rage.

"I apologize, for not extending my formalities in the form of a cautionary note. But, I am "death..."

"Metaphorical, or literal?"

"I'm not a "hanging over your head," death, I'm the literal “personage" of death." The man's tone was strangely smooth. One would think the tone of death's voice would be foreboding. But no, the man's voice was genuinely calming, and neither was it as void of feelings like one would imagine Hades' voice to be when resiliently fending off Orpheus' obnoxious demands to reverse the horrific fate of Eurydice.

"Well, you can come in...but, if I die after this exchange...well there will be quite a reckoning, I tell ya!" With a cursory glance towards the shadowy figure wearing a tan trench coat, I allowed him to come in.

Walking into the brightly lit living room of my apartment, his formerly shadowed face became paradoxically darker. I couldn't quite fathom this metamorphosis. It defied science. There goes all my rational assumptions about this man.

As always, I had recalled that I neglected to shower for nearly a week. My hair was probably a tangled, unwashed mess of curly brown hair. With my glasses, a ratty white t-shirt, and blue sweats, I looked like a common drunk with a nerdy vibe. Perhaps, the maddened poet would be a more precise title. ÂŤ111Âť

Seating himself gracefully upon my rather stiff black leather couch, from Ikea, he stared towards me with his darkened gaze. I couldn't quite discern what sort of emotions was linked to this stare. Was it inquiring, or potentially curious? Again, the face was too dark to truly tell such things.

"Robert, I'm so glad to finally have the opportunity to talk with you..." I felt abashed when he said this aloud. How did he know my name, and why would death wish to talk or intervene?

"First off, Mr. Death, Why are you wearing a flasher's jacket." The tension within the room that had been pent up was released with a rather light laugh. From death, this was uncalled for. Shouldn't he have a grim laugh, or even a serious one, but a jolly laugh is just bizarre?

"Oh Robert, Do you know how many mortals try to penetrate me with that question? Some have even tried to hit on me with that question.

You aren't doing that, Robert...you're too grim for even that..." What? I'm the one who is grim. He's the one with the obscured face. Is every part of him similarly pitched in darkness?

"How am I grim?" I yelled, taken aback by his charge.

"What have you been doing for the last few days? I see, you haven't showered....Do you sorely miss someone?"

He was penetrating the heart of me without the use of any interrogative questions. He must have intrinsic telekinetic skills, or something.

"Actually, I do have acute telekinetic senses. They're attached to being able to comprehend the language embedded within quantum material..."

"Quantum material?" I probably had a quizzical stare by now. Chills ran along down my spine.

"You see, Robert. I can help you to find renewed purpose within this wasted life of yours... See, I am "death" of a different understanding." His darkened face slowly became discernible. There was still a veil of darkness, but it was opaque now which allowed me to see the traces of a stunningly beautiful face that I could not quite understand. It was a transcendent beauty that my mortal mind could not understand, just like how no human mind has evolved to the point of being able to fully ascertain substances like quantum material that was so much smaller than atoms that we are composed of.

"Do you salvage people's lives from the abyss then?" Slowly, I was beginning to understand the nature of this "being."

"Yes, I trace the remnants of their quantum energy which are scattered by the lack of a will to live again." Again, the majesty of his hidden face became lost within the darkness of his face.

"Well, I'm not dead yet...What does this matter to me?" The question did not faze "Death," at all. He just rested his hand on my tense shoulders, ÂŤ112Âť

and warmly massaged them.

"No...No...you're not dead yet. If you take up my assignment, you might never fully die... It's an arduous, unfulfilled lifestyle, but I have been watching you from afar, deep within the shadows of a black hole.

Your quantum existences extend outwards beyond the reaches of your small galaxy, and widen itself in a desperate search for meaning." I felt my nervous mind become nourished by his meaningful thoughts. There was no longer a sudden need for a paroxysm of confusion within my mind. A part of me did not want to yield to this man's questionable ideas.

"How many other types of "beings" like you are there? Shouldn't there be more than one "death" to saves the lives of many from being scattered to the point of reaching oblivion?" I became overrun with anxiety again. There was no consolation. This man might defy standard logic just enough to permanently calm us with soothing words of there being deeper meaning. I, for one, was not impressed in the slightest. This system of his was just overwrought...people were still irrevocably lost in some measure by the phenomenon of death.

"Robert, I understand you... You're fearful that Andrea is lost somehow...swallowed up by death...that is why I'm here...to help you to save people..." Death's precise enigmatic words continued, which evaded my direct questions.

"No, death...Andrea is gone, irretrievably lost..... You're just a phantasm of my crazed mind. That's it... I'm going fuckin nuts..." Taking the flask that I had set down on the dark-wood coffee table, I flipped the top and downed the vodka mixed with lemonade. Remember that old platitude, when "life gives you lemons, make lemonade..."

"Robert, Please stop...you're killing yourself..." The marked horror of death' swords made me drop the flask to the ground below, spilling the rest of the lemonade vodka upon the apartment's barf-colored carpet. Why did this stupid being have to expend so much cosmic energy to care?

I started becoming a little more inebriated, and deeply longed for Zach to come back to visit me. After my wife, Andrea, died, I started depending on him to allay my misery. At that point, I wasn't considering the strict social laws pertaining to sexual orientation. I loved men, and women both equally. No, I was simply in love with personalities more. The gender was insignificant.

"Where's Zach?? Death, I need Zach..." Then I recalled that poignant moment where Zach never really visited me after Andrea died.

When I was deeply drunk, I had just imagined any phantom to provide me comfort. No one visited me. It wasn't their fault. I moved away from them, far away. I dug myself deep into an unmarked grave, a cheap apartment complex within an uninteresting town in Kansas. No one could find me ever, I left without a trace. I was living off royalties from the only two ÂŤ113Âť

novels I managed to finish. They were popular enough to secure a cheapass, anonymous lifestyle I lived now. Thirty-five years old, and I was now living in a waste dump whereas I was once perfectly married for ten years.

The baby killed her; she killed herself and the baby. We couldn't have children... She was raped, and refused to have her baby. She couldn't have an abortion either, it was banned in our country...I would have loved the child. What made her afraid to share her burden with me?

The immense volume of alcohol flooding my brain made all these pathetic thoughts flood out. I had tried to repress them, only to have them bounce back and become fully fleshed out within the drunken haze that I was experiencing. Where was "death?" Could he hear me now?

"Robert, I'm here..." I awoke from my miserable rumination of thoughts, and stared above at Death's beautiful face dimly etched into his dark face. His dark, curiously immaterial hands rubbed my shoulders again, as I sat up from the floor where I was having a panic attack. I could tell because I had that residual shaking throughout my body. He helped support me, as I sat up and carefully situated myself on the stiff Ikea couch which was strangely more comfortable now after my traumatic moment.

"How long I have been out cold?" I weakly inquired, still regaining a hold on my thoughts after that embarrassing collapse.

"You've been out for about eight hours, when you awoke and had a panic attack. You were first screaming hoarsely for Andrea, and then Zach. Then, you became caught up with yelling for "God," until you started yelling for death. Then you started shaking and crying bitterly. After that, you have found yourself back where you were before. Of course, now I'm sure you're just very hung over, am I correct?"

"Well, you're still here...then, you sadly must be quite real... "

"Very tangible luckily, for you..."

"So, you won't be leaving until you get your damn answer right," Why was he still here? He could have determined that my little melodramatic meltdown was the decisive moment where I had turned down his offer.

"I apologize for emotionally overwhelming you... I've had people literally die before my sight before because they think I'm an alarming indication that they're irreversibly mad. That happens with the quantum energy of those people I try bringing together into a cohesive whole again.

They detach themselves and dart off into many various directions in the universe. Mind you, I'm trying to use your figurative language to describe these strange processes that supersede the existential nature of your language. Nothing really dissolves, or dies. It just collapses, and hopefully is remade as something new, or sadly, it falls completely apart and is scattered throughout the universe where it can become lost for some measure of time.

Now, I made you some coffee in the hopes to revive your mind to the point ÂŤ114Âť

where you may understand the extent of your mission."

Handing me a mug of fresh coffee with his darkened hands, I hurriedly drank down the coffee like I haven't had such a warm, satisfying concoction before. ''I'm sorry "death," that I don't go to church anymore. I'm living in Kansas now because other states have mandated church services, for which I wanted to escape ever since the whole...fiasco, happened with their whole refusal to bury her properly with ceremonial rites. Of course, the Catholic burial rites weren't allowed either ever since Christianity became standardized like the state tests I took when I was younger." I don't know why I was starting my morning conversation with these irrelevant details about my potential death. No indication told me I had died, just almost died.

"No, Robert. I completely understand. Kansas used to have a high density of strict Christians, but it's been taken over by atheists, Catholics, Buddhists, Quakers, liberal Protestants, Jews, and Episcopalians, and other minority groups over the years ever since the rigid Christians, the political majority overtook the country and forced all other minorities to live in Kansas. Of course, you don't strictly fit into any of these categories, and that is why you'd be a perfect candidate to become a being like me." A curious aura of silence overtook the room. His last bit made me feel eminently more important than the other people he mentioned, which translated to me feeling horribly pompous.

"What about those other people? I have a few, or I did have a few Episcopalian and Catholic friends who covertly worshipped in secret away from the periphery of the Holy Martial Order, within the states where practice of other religions was strictly forbidden."

"Robert, you misunderstand me...I didn't mean to sound so demeaning in your mind, I just meant that those people still have a strong desire to live, while you don't. A member of "death" has to be willing to consciously confront death everyday...Isn't that what you've been doing for the last few years of your life? Wasn't your last novel a retelling of the ancient Greek myth about Orpheus? That was published a few months after Andrea died. It was a modernized adaptation of the epic which has sold a high number of copies. Death is inescapable for you quite literally."

"Well, didn't Jesus live a life with full awareness of death, or the Buddha? Are they part of your force?" Suddenly, I was overtaken with a sharp sense of curiosity about this elusive task force that wanders the universe in search of scattered quantum parts of someone and hoping to renew new life within them. If his words held any veracity, I might be able to find Andrea.

"Robert, I've never met another member of the "Death" task force.

We work in pure isolation from another. The universe is an expansive place where other beings like myself are inexorable. Actually, I lie somewhat. ÂŤ115Âť

I have met only one other member of the task force, and they were the ones that convinced me to join the task force. I've never seen this since till that chance encounter." Normally, Death's voice was pretty smooth until it became noticeably saddened by the mention of his "deceased" apprentice."

"I'm sure, he's somewhere, culling together quantum energies, and renewing life..."

"Yes Robert, I'm sure he is." Again, the mask of darkness covering Death's face lightened again to show the tracing of a heart-rending face of lament. Robert felt deeply sad, beyond words, at Death's sorrow as he remembered his lost "apprentice."

"Death, I haven't known you for that long, but I do love you. I've decided to take up arms so to say, and become a member of the death task force. I may not know what this occupation entails, but I think it might help me find Andrea." Confidently, I resolved myself to be a part of this significant mission, even if it was leagues beyond my comprehension.

"Robert, I'm overjoyed, but sad at the same time. I love you, of course! But you must know that... You've defeated death!" Robert felt terrified at the words being spoken though Death had suddenly vanished from the apartment. Maybe, it was all lies. This had to be some optical trickery, all due to the overuse of alcohol. How could he just vacate the realm of tangibility, and depart elsewhere? Perhaps, this was the end. He felt his heart give a sudden "thwack." Things were going all wrong. Another sharp "thwack" of the heart made his tenor increase.

He began to scream, as his heart began thumping uncontrollably faster, and faster. Increasingly, he felt incapable of taking a breath as the beat of his heart rapidly increased towards the point of death, or at least it appeared to be taking him there.

By the time, he sensed that his heart was beginning to stop altogether. He knew he was facing the definitive death. Potentially, his mystical encounter with that shadowed being had only been an imagined source of consolation. There was not anything beyond the point of death.

He would never see Andrea's face again, and he could never tell Zach how much he loved him. Life was a futile evasion of death. Once it happened, there was no returning. Or at least, there was no potential to even remember yourself once your entire existence was illogically wiped from the accidental universe.

As his heart finally stopped beating, he knew his short-termed life was all for naught...

ÂŤ116Âť

Dawn from Muhlenberg Brigade Mike Prykowski

«117»

On Bart's Choice: Note to Self Stephanie R. deLusé

You are afraid. The fear is real, but the conditions are not permanent. You will take the lessons you need to from your experience. You are good at that. So have faith. You will survive this too and continue to thrive.

It is true that you do still need more rest, and that comes in many forms, not just sleep. Walking, meditating, writing, being with friends are all restful to you. Your plants and kitties are as well. But even more so, you are correct, attitude matters. Your attitude is generally good, but the seeds of worry run deep in you so sometimes you don't even know how much you are worrying under the surface, which makes it harder to know how to stop.

Two ways to stop it are by releasing on seen and unseen worries, known and unknown. The other is through writing and reflecting more to bring the inner knowledge of worries up into your awareness and light so you can let them go. Obviously the former way is faster and easier, but sometimes you resist doing things the easy way. Or your curiosity with yourself and your voyeuristic need of seeing yourself unfolded motivates you to have to slog through more of the muck or not muck.

Either way is okay, but why not do it the easy way more often?

Save the longer process for when you have more time or need insights or material to help others and to write. And you really have enough of that already as it is. Trust that the insights and awareness you'll need to know for self and others will come through as you need them. You won't have to go digging for them. Allow, allow, allow.

Yes, you are already relaxing by being in more conscious contact with your higher self, with spirit, so learn from that and be in contact more often. There is always help. You sometimes worry about tomorrow or what's coming next. Just remember that every day is just another day.

That said, we know that some days carry bigger shifts or news and, yes, some things deeply affect. You are in pain over Bart's decision even now, and you worry for everyone. How to understand a friend's completely unexpected suicide? Just as your kitty purrs beside you, each person suffering Bart's loss has some comfort nearby. Bart, however, did not take adequate comfort from the good things in his life. His choice is not indicative of any failings on anyone's part. He had his own path to walk. Or stop walking. He will be okay "on the other side," so you can stop worrying about him. You've already helped him by your prayers and aiding in his transition. He appreciates that, loves you too, and is moving on.

«118»

Your doubt about another "side" has crept in again, but then you ushered it out. That's good. You don't need to figure everything out right now. You can't always anyway. Keep doing that—ushering out—with everything that causes you fear, worry, or doubt. See it, and usher it out.

You've known the value in this for years and usually practice it—it has helped you survive life's downturns with grace. Notice, let go. Notice, let go. You've just had a lot to notice lately, and the deep seeds have bothered you. Harder to let go, but it is doable. So let go, let go, let go of the deep seeds without even having to notice them first.

You are doing what you need to do. You are powerful and you are embracing that more and more, so don't worry. You are on track with the keys in the locks of life. In fact, you are ahead of the game in some ways, which just makes you feel as if it should be done already, as if you should already have "arrived." It will all come together for you. That is clear, so relax, have faith, and enjoy.

You are happy to not feel alone. You are never alone. Unseen support is with you always, and you are well-loved by your friends, family, and even people you don't know very well.

All that said, you are sad and worried about Bart's choice and other situations, but, again, let it go. The overarching or underlying emotion for you is shifting too, as you know. You have intimate knowledge of many forms of suffering. We can learn from suffering, and you will help many from what you know and communicate about it. But you don't have to keep suffering yourself. Your body is essentially strong at its core, so the weirdities you experience will pass soon enough. Yes, the stress rash you are experiencing on your neck—which suddenly appeared when you got the news that Bart killed himself—will pass soon enough. The surface is not permanent, but your positive memories of him will remain.

Still, the message is clear: self-care and peace are crucial. You don't have to go overboard in efforts to avoid life stresses, but take care of yourself well so that you can allow stresses to pass through you and not stick. The health stress you are experiencing now is because you let yourself run down on some levels. You are feeling the experience of old choices exacerbated by acute events. This is a layer of new stress temporarily sticking to a temporarily tired body. But, as you know, you are rebuilding yourself now. We all can. All is not lost.

Nothing is lost. Neither you, nor Bart, did permanent damage to your real selves by getting off track in the ways you respectively did. The cycle, the progress, continues.

THE END

«119»

When Something's Taken Robert Rothman

When something's taken, something comes,

the hole can't hold the emptiness,

the pain can't be sustained; black earth

fat with worms and eager roots fills the void in days; and if

the memory of loss remains,

if the grief won't go away,

soon the threading roots bind flesh to stronger needs, to hungry mouths

that press hot lips to those gone cold;

and deep in blackest solitude

a seed begins to grow, unknown to dirt, the caved-in hole, the rain

that sifts through gaps, the spaces that

can't be consoled. The dream it dreams

can't be denied; its roots spread out and stalk, blind-eyed, through darkness finds

its way upward into day. Light

turns green hopes to buds, new life

will have its way. Each day brings flowers and the buzz of bees,

the germinating dance. The pain

stays, never goes away complete,

the hole not ever wholly gone.

ÂŤ120Âť

Spirituality

Light on Spirituality Amy Kolb

«121»

The O'Malley Henry G. Miller

It was often claimed and rarely disputed that Father Kevin O'Malley was the greatest teacher of theology in the history of St. John's Seminary.

And there had been many good ones. But The O'Malley, as he was affectionately called, had a special charm. Handsome and articulate, with the blackest hair you've ever seen, he not only permitted doubts and dissent, he encouraged them. He would answer all questions in such a masterful way that the students called him the "Irish Socrates." There were many theories about him. Was he just testing his own faith and needed to be reassured?

How come he became a priest? With his looks and charm, he could have been President or a movie actor. In high school, he was the star of all the plays. And he never denied that he loved the applause. ***

Kevin O'Malley grew up in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Even at a young age, the girls flocked around him, not just because he was goodlooking, but he was courteous and friendly in a way the other boys weren't.

Kevin took great pride in the ethnic roots of his diverse neighborhood. Next to the Bushwick section was Bedford-Stuyvesant where the colored people, as they were then called, lived. Kevin never tolerated anyone to speak of them in that ugly way that was common back in the 1940s. The Irish, of course, dominated the parish. But the Italians were coming in strong and that made for tensions. Kevin was always the peacemaker. After all, Grandma Joan was a Torrisi who married Jacob Backhoff, the son of a Rabbi, no less. And their daughter, Mary, brought up Catholic as her mother insisted, married Joseph O'Malley.

Kevin would often sneak into the Gates Avenue Synagogue where his grandfather sometimes went, even though the priests told Kevin it was forbidden territory. But there was something Oriental in the atmosphere that he loved. Of course, Kevin had been brought up Catholic, very Catholic. Church every Sunday, confession every Saturday, First Communion, Confirmation, and Catholic school at St. Gregory's, as well as having been born in St. Vincent's Hospital, as his father insisted, to give him the right head start.

Kevin was one of the few children who actually loved the religious classes. He knew his catechism better than anyone. When asked why he studied it so hard, he would reply, "It answers all the questions and makes ÂŤ122Âť

you feel so good."

But above all, it was the story of Mary and Joseph, the very names of his own parents, that captivated his imagination. The miracle of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The humble birth in a manger.

Christmas, a day of gifts and kindness all over the world when the promise of human goodness is never brighter. The flight into Egypt. The Crucifixion to save all humankind. The Resurrection. There never was a story like it. It gave magical meaning to life. The nuns loved him. He was a model Catholic boy.

But then there was Uncle Max, his mother's brother, who was brought up Catholic. That was the deal Grandma Joan and Grandpa Jacob made. Mary to be Catholic, Max to choose for himself. Kevin and Max had a special relationship, always arguing about something but in the most loving way. Max never married and was like a second father to Kevin. Kevin's father didn't always approve of his brother-in-law, Max, but tolerated him to keep the family peace.

Max didn't believe in anything. He questioned everything. Like his father, the Rabbi, Max loved questions more than answers. He liked shocking the rest of the family. "Don't you know religion is the opiate of the people? They get drugged on faith so they don't have to think about dying.

Let's face it, this is all there is. We make our heaven and hell right here."

But Kevin, even as a youngster, could always give Max a good fight.

Once, when Kevin was a teenager, he even got Max to back down when Kevin said in a big voice with great confidence, "Just give God a chance.

He loves you so. Without Christ, there's no meaning to life." Max even laughed a little. "Is that so? I don't even know the guy and he loves me.

That's wonderful." Max had a temper but was good-natured when it came to Kevin.

Early on, it was understood Kevin would go into the priesthood.

Many a young woman was disappointed when he became a priest and thought it a great waste. Max, of course, didn't approve, but the rest of the family was pleased and proud. Kevin's father, Joseph, thought it wonderful that the family was finally blessed with a vocation.

Kevin graduated first in his class at the Seminary. There never was any doubt that he was going to be asked to stay on. The Seminary never had a student like Kevin. All the older priests agreed, he would be the one to teach the new seminarians. After a while, no one could even remember a time when The O'Malley wasn't at the Seminary. On his twenty-fifth anniversary as the senior teacher of theology, they had a celebration. He was a legend. And he had many famous conversions to his credit. He had brought peace to many a searcher.

He was a wise counselor. Many of his old friends came to talk things over with him. Even some of the women who knew him when they ÂŤ123Âť

were young would visit him to seek his advice. Some people raised their eyebrows, but there was really nothing to raise eyebrows about. ***

His lectures, many outside the Seminary, were famous and wellattended. They were never facile. When he spoke of the hereafter, he didn't sugarcoat it. He made it plain that heaven wouldn't be a crowd of souls sitting around. It wouldn't be bodies endlessly young gorging on the pleasures of the flesh. It would be more like a joyous state of mind where all questions would be answered and, yes, there would be the peace that surpasseth all understanding. The saved would finally be with Jesus in some loving and mysterious way beyond words to describe.

There was no doubt about it. He was happy and contented. His faith was strong. He never resented or regretted not having a family of his own or a more public life.

But then there came that time when Max, his favorite uncle, was dying. Kevin spent Max's last week on Earth unsuccessfully trying to convert him to Christ.

"Uncle Max, give me the gift of an open mind."

"If it makes you happy, Kevin."

"Jesus loves you if you'd only let him."

"I told you many times. I never personally met the man. So I don't know if he's particularly lovable."

"But Christ died for you."

"Kevin, haven't I taught you anything? The whole thing is silly.

Religions build on each other. It's a human creation. One tells a story. A myth is born. The next religion embellishes it. None of them are original.

God had a son and he sent him here to die to atone for our sins. It doesn't make the slightest sense, and it's not too late for you to have an open mind and see the world as it really is."

"But without God, life would have no meaning."

"And with God, it doesn't make much sense either."

Max died with a smile on his face, squeezing his favorite nephew's hand. Kevin did the eulogy and broke down a little bit. "Max never married.

But he was a great family man. He did it his way, and I'm sure the allmerciful God who understands all..." Kevin sobbed a little but finally got through it.

After that, some thought Kevin was a bit discouraged and even depressed. The head of the Seminary called him in.

"Kevin, you've been working too hard. You haven't had a vacation in years. This time I insist. "

"Where would I go?" ÂŤ124Âť

"Why don't you go to the Holy Land? I did about ten years ago.

Wonderful. I'd go back tomorrow. It strengthened my faith."

"You think mine needs strengthening?"

"Kevin, we're all beset with doubts. It's only human. It just means we're being tested."

"Well, I could use a rest." ***

And so he went. Kevin walked the same steps taken by Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem where baby Jesus was born. He relived the days of their flight into Egypt and then into Jerusalem, their return to Nazareth in the province of Galilee, and the Crucifixion on a hill called Golgotha. Kevin felt the excitement he had felt as a boy when hearing the story of the birth and passion of Christ for the first time. It was a wonderful trip.

Kevin was looking forward to the side trip that just a few on the tour were taking into Egypt. After all, the Egyptian civilization was one of the oldest and richest in human history. It was at the Temple of Horus that the professor spoke of the gods Isis and Osiris. Kevin had never heard the story before. It happened 4000 years before Christ.

There was no single narrative. Kevin asked many questions and picked up bits and pieces as best he could. Osiris impregnated Isis. A spiritual conception. Isis had perpetual virginity. Osiris had been murdered.

After three days, resurrected. Osiris' coming was announced by three wise men. The family had to flee. Horus, an only child. Baptized at 30.

Twelve companions. He made bread, healed wounds, raised the dead. There were many sources. It was difficult to find a coherent story. Kevin wasn't even sure he recalled many of the details accurately.

When Kevin came home to the Seminary, he spoke with excitement of his trip. References to the Holy Land became a large part of his lectures.

There was no doubt the trip had refreshed him. His old vigor was back.

Still, thoughts of Uncle Max and his skeptical words often intruded without warning. Kevin wondered what Max would say about all he learned during his trip.

To many, however, it was quite a surprise when some time later, Kevin took a leave of absence. Then the leave extended beyond what was expected. A substitute teacher of theology had to be found.

But that was nothing compared to the amazement at the Seminary when Kevin left the priesthood the next year. At the Seminary, they talked of little but The O'Malley for many months. Theories abounded. But after a few years, he was mentioned less and less. Occasionally, someone would say, "I wonder whatever happened to The O'Malley?" Amazingly, no one at the Seminary heard from him again. ÂŤ125Âť

Some years later, one of his students, now a priest, came to the annual reunion at the Seminary. "You'll never guess who I saw. I was walking in Riverside Park where you get that great view of the Hudson River on the Upper West Side. And there he was. The O'Malley. Leaning over the rail.

Staring into the river. I never let on I saw him. I didn't want to embarrass him. You know how neat he used to be. He was a bit shabby and needed a shave. He did turn toward me. But he didn't see me. I'll never forget that look in his eyes, haunted, far away. Handsome as ever. Then some woman came along. They knew each other. She was his age, maybe a little younger.

They didn't notice me. She looked at him in a very understanding way and said, 'We'd better go.' Then, she took his arm. She led him away and he went with her. They walked down Riverside Drive and I followed them.

They turned into 77th Street. I lost them there and didn't see them after that."

The O'Malley was the talk of the evening. Each of the priests, his former students, had an opinion.

"I think I understand. He left the priesthood for a woman. Let's be honest, chastity is not easy. It's not natural."

"No. He won that battle years ago. Faith is a gift. You can't take it for granted. He lost it. That's all."

"I think he was disappointed. I think he would have loved to be a Broadway or Hollywood star. He was always putting on plays. He liked the excitement of it. Let's face it, even with a strong vocation, you can get a little bored teaching a lot of eager new theology students."

"He was never the same after that uncle of his died. The truth is, we're all tested. Remember Thomas? Doubting Thomas was one of the Apostles."

"You can never tell about people. Who could have figured The O'Malley would finish up like that? You just can never tell what bothers a person. What could have gotten into him? What was he thinking? People are such a mystery."

THE END

ÂŤ126Âť

Plans

Ashley Scheiber

Rest, human beings, say the gods To their progeny.

Acknowledge that we will laugh At all your grandiose ideas and plans; It

is

what we

do.

So

big

are

we

In comparison to you.

Creep across your velveteen As

floors

mice steal across fields latent with

Unharvested wheat.

Scurry

across

Scuffling

over your insignificances

As

ants 111 do,

do,

Scuttle

across

Predestined not

lives,

their mindlessness

Rush to

Do

your momentary

do,

do,

moments

and

happen stances

contain

do. bustle

through

that

the

optimism

of

spontaneity.

Scamper and hurry And plan and B

r

e

plan and

a

t

You

are

As

beetle

the

as

h

plan yourself l

e

s

laudable

to

us

to

elephant

the

As it hastens to crumple Before being trampled.

Rest, human begins, say the gods, Acknowledge that all of us Will laugh at your plans.

ÂŤ127Âť

a

s.

leaf in

its Jaw

Through the Trees...

Mike Prykowski

«128»

The Dark Night of the Soul Justin Boyer

A troubling thought What has been wrought?

By the converging waves Of icy waters entering caves Which are my solitary abodes Within the cave, one cry Fills the darkened sky Death feints Whilst I paint Upon the blackened walls of my design The tempest from outside Forces me to hide Deeper within this cavern Sealing away my concern Who dares disturb this sacred peace?

Red is the pigment of paint Used to depict the saints Figments of my imagination A touch of consolation Arraying themselves against my dark soul

The reckless violence floods my mind

I fear madness of this kind

A darkened shape drifts

Through the waves that just swift

Past my once dry home

Falling deep within the water Was like losing a father The sea suddenly seeps Over me, can I sleep?

Is the shadow still here?

ÂŤ129Âť

That shadowy figure Why does it just get bigger?

It becomes elongated As though I were fated To be destroyed once more

Pushing me further under the water

Committing spiritual murder

Are the saints still watching?

Do they not see me dying?

Or crying?

My lips are pressed against theirs Where are my heirs?

I am being tortured into love Without any rescue from above A desperate prayer escapes my heathen lips

Suddenly the figure dissipates Was this part of fate?

To become tainted Can this pain be painted Into something recoverable?

An albatross hangs from my neck Weighing me down like heck The water washes out Leaving me with deep doubt Where can I go from here?

The cave swallows me up Darkness fills this bottomless cup This disillusioning cave I have a need to bathe My sins feel impermeable

A single thread of thought Seems to become caught

Within my mind

What can I find?

Did I even sin?

ÂŤ130Âť

How can I be slain And feeling nothing but burning pain Incessant sorrow

Where the illusion is there's no tomorrow Are there "people" outside?

In some former life, I loved God Now, I just nod Because I know he's gone He's never been here for very long What is this paradox you call a God? I'm still here, breathing Painfully heaving For one calm breath Within the living death Of the cave

Is Hades here?

Does he dwell near?

No, he's as lifeless as me He forgot the notion of "how to be" I am Hades, separated from the living

There was music, how elusive How is music conducive To living passively In a cave that massively Lacks the timbre of Orpheus' soulful music Life was swept away long ago By a dastardly foe I was snared and tortured My heart, it was skewered No one believed my pain I caved myself in Lying in sin Is it even mine?

I don't feel fine The stench of sin is so overpowering ÂŤ131Âť

Can my heart be salvaged From this body, so ravaged Will the shadow stop haunting me?

Is this how it is supposed to be?

Trapped within a cave of my own making With my red paint I paint one more saint Across the lonely walls Where every saint normally falls Within the cave's oppressive darkness Can I ever live again?

Or do I just stay within this den Till I completely blend Into the shadows filling every bend Of this God-forsaken cave

ÂŤ132Âť

Magic/Supernatural

The Key

Hayley Gibson

«134»

Grim Fairy Tales Paul Bowen

O

nce upon a time a pair of sisters-twins-were forced to leave their parents'

cottage and find their fortune in the woods. You see, the parents could not provide enough food for the family of four, so they decided to make a clean start and try their luck with just a family of two. Don't feel too bad for the girls: their parents were pretty awful in the first place. That left Megan and Morgan, who were only seven, quite out of luck. So their father walked them a ways into the woods and then walked home, stranding the girls in the wilderness. Megan had considered leaving something to show their path back home—bread crumbs or something—but since the family hadn't even enough money for a loaf of bread, that wasn't an option. Besides, reasoned Morgan, do we really want to go back?

So when their father turned around and walked back to the cottage, Megan and Morgan kept walking deeper into the woods. They eventually came upon a beautiful castle. But the castle was overgrown with vines and it was very difficult to get in, as they engulfed the entire castle. This was little deterrent for the excited little girls who were fascinated with castles. When they got in, they were surprised to find it completely uninhabited. Or so they thought.

"Why, Megan! We could live in this castle," cried Morgan. "We could be princesses! "

"Indeed we could, sister," said Megan. "But castles need protection.

You can be the princess. I will be a valiant knight."

"Whoever heard of a girl knight?" asked Morgan.

"Well, who ever heard of a girl who decides she's a princess just because she shows up at an abandoned castle?" asked Megan.

"Very well, good knight. Protect our lovely home!"

The girls played around for some time, Megan pretending to be a brave knight and Morgan pretending to be a beautiful princess. It was only when they stopped to rest that they heard a voice from the shadows.

"My, it's been so very long since I've seen children playing," said the voice.

"Who said that?" asked Megan, pretending to draw her sword.

«135»

"Come out of the shadows this instant."

"You need not cower from your princess," said Morgan.

With that, a bent over old woman came out from a dark corner. Her back was so stooped and her hood covered her head so that the girls could not see her face.

"Why, it's an old woman," said Megan, sheathing her imaginary sword.

"Aye, 'tis just an old woman," said the woman. But as she walked closer, the girls noticed that she seemed to hide her face deliberately and not just due to her physical condition.

"Please, good woman," said Morgan. "Step closer and look your princess in the face."

The woman was mere inches away when she lifted her head and raised her hood.

The girls shuddered. She was no old woman, but a hideous witch.

Her skin had an unnatural gray tint and the warts—hair growing from all of them—were legion. Her nose was long and looked as though it had been broken a few times. To say her eyes were black suggests dark irises, but even the whites of the woman's eyes were black. They were soulless, like a shark's. There was no way to tell where those eyes were looking.

Her mouth was the worst. The teeth that weren't missing were uneven and filthy enough to almost blend in with her black maw. And the smell was awful. Her breath had a horrible, sweet smell. Like death and mold and evil. When the girls instinctively turned their heads from the woman, it was more from the smell than her ugly face.

And she was smiling. She laughed silently at first, her shoulders hitching with mirth. Then a great cackle escaped her rotten mouth and before the girls could turn to flee, the talons at the end of her arms reached forward and grabbed them in a tight grip.

"I haven't had meat in so long!" she shouted. She pulled them through the castle and into the kitchen where, fast as lightning, she smote the girls on the head with a rolling pin. Then, without even removing their clothing, she plopped them into an enormous pie crust and threw some celery, carrots, onions, and spices on top. She put them in the preheated oven and sat, waiting for her delicious meal.

Wait. This isn't right. It's not the girls' story that I'm trying to tell.

«136»

O

nce upon a time a young woman was wandering through the woods. Her

home village was destroyed during an invasion and she only knew to flee.

By the time she stopped running, she had no idea where she was. After a few weeks she came upon an abandoned castle. Well, she thought, at least it's shelter. So she took up residence in the castle. She was an industrious girl and learned to hunt and find the edible, even delicious, plants in the woods. She survived, though she was lonely.

One day not long after she was living there, she was picking berries and she heard voices. Young voices! Excited, she ran to meet the first living people she had seen in months. When she came to a clearing, she saw a little boy and a little girl.

The young woman had not seen herself for some time. If she got her water from a stream, she might have noticed how filthy she was in the reflection; but she got her water from a deep well. If the castle had mirrors, she certainly would have seen how the dirt found its way onto every surface of her body; but the castle had no mirrors. So when she approached the youngsters, you can understand why they screamed and threw rocks at the woman, scarring her face. You see, they thought she was a witch.

Sadly, this was only the first of many similar occurrences. Enough is a enough, the woman though. She vowed never to trust people again.

Around the castle she planted vines that quickly grew to great heights, making entry very tricky. Of course, the woman knew all of the secret entrances.

For years she lived alone in the castle. And eventually, her body began to betray her. She began to slow down and the hunting that used to come so easily became difficult, and then impossible. Her diet now consisted almost entirely of plant life.

So you can also understand why the woman, now an old woman, did not welcome Megan and Morgan with open arms. And you can understand why she was so keen on eating meat. And you can understand why, though the girls weren't quite done yet when the woman removed them from the oven, she ate her twin pot pie.

Of course, she didn't eat the entire pie, but the amount she did eat, coupled with how long it had been since she'd had meat, exhausted her.

After the meal she retired to her bedroom.

Because her sleep was so deep, she did not hear the prince come in through her window. And because he was so piously quiet, she did not hear ÂŤ137Âť

him say, "Egad! Here I am looking for a princess to marry when I find a most beautiful specimen in the midst of a great, enchanted sleep. Surely if I give this maiden fair love's first kiss, she will awaken and marry this poor, lonely prince."

So he bent toward the woman, closing his eyes of course, and kissed her quite passionately on the mouth.

Wait, this isn't really her story, either.

O forest.

nce upon a time a near-sighted prince was wandering through the

Being the youngest prince in his brood (and the densest, though nobody told him that), he was at the end of a long line of succession for the crown. He was looking for some great deed to do so that he might marry a beautiful princess (and live with her and eventually become king, of course).

When he saw an abandoned castle, his heart skipped a beat. This castle was covered in vines and bramble bush. It reminded him of a story he once heard, though he could not remember the details. Rather than try to find the door to the castle, he walked straight up to one of the vines and started climbing (he often had trouble finding entrances), thinking he would just hop the wall once he got to the top. Halfway up, however, he came to an open window and spied someone sleeping in a grand bed.

"I do believe I have found my princess," said the prince as he climbed in.

He crept (strange, since he believed her sleep to be spell-induced, but that's our prince for you) over to the bed and leaned over to kiss her.

He reverently closed his eyes as he planted his lips on hers.

For her part, the woman in the bed was dreaming of something she had not had for some time—human companionship. As the prince kissed, her lips melted and she kissed him in return. Only then did she awaken and the prince stood back.

"What's this?" asked the woman.

"I am a handsome prince who has come to break the spell," he said.

"Spell?"

As he talked, the legend returned to him. "Yes, the spell. An evil ÂŤ138Âť

fairy cast a spell that you would die from a needle prick on your sixteenth birthday. You are sixteen, correct?"

The woman cleared her throat and tried to soften her voice. "Yes."

"But someone else offset the spell by making it so that the needle would only put you to sleep until love's first kiss woke you."

"I remember it now," lied the woman.

"Come away with me, princess," cried the prince. "We will away to my kingdom and you will meet my family."

Remembering the reaction the last time people had seen her face, the woman asked the prince, "Do you really think I'm beautiful?"

"Of course! I am severely near-sighted and can barely see my hand when it is before my face, but were you not in an enchanted sleep?"

"Well, yes."

"Then you must be a beautiful princess! Evil fairies don't put just anyone into enchanted sleeps."

"You're right, of course," she said. "But say, couldn't we stay at my lovely castle? Let's start over anew, right here! I have a beautiful garden and you can hunt us up some meat. It will be like a long honeymoon."

"Hm. It's a bit unorthodox. And I can't hunt to save my life. But I can make traps! Very well, princess. We'll stay here. But can I at least bring a few squires?"

"I suppose," she said. "But just one more caveat. You probably forgot this part of the legend, but only you may look upon my beauty. If anyone else sees me, I will fall asleep again. And this time, nothing can wake me."

"Ooh la la!" cried the prince. "You must be quite the looker. Damn my eyes! Very well, then. You shall remain hidden, only to be seen by me."

The woman rushed into the prince's arms and held him tight. "We shall be happy forever," she said.

"What's that awful smell?" asked the prince.

"Don't worry about that. My castle's a little musty. You'll get used to it."

I'm sorry. I'm really telling this story all wrong. Okay, I know where I messed up. I'll get it right this time.

O

nce upon a time, just half a day's walk up the path from the castle I've already ÂŤ139Âť

introduced you to, lived a beautiful princess. But alas, she was a sad princess. Her kingdom was placed under a powerful spell where everyone but she was fast asleep and would remain so until the spell was broken. The princess felt no thirst, nor hunger, but she could not leave her castle. And she was desperately lonely.

Day after day she talked to her parents, the king and queen, and day after day they slept, dreaming of who knows what. She would talk to and try to rouse every subject of the kingdom, every day. They slept like the dead. After one hundred years of living like this, the princess tried to slash her wrists, but found no knife would cut her skin. No noose would choke the air out of her lungs. No amount of rat poison would even upset her stomach slightly. "This damned spell!" she cried.

Her only connection to the outside world was a magic mirror. With this simple stone mirror, its user could see anyone approaching the castle.

But it only worked one way. "Mirror, mirror, made of shale," the princess would recite. "Who's coming up on yonder trail?" So this sad princess could see everyone who came up the trail, only to stop at the closer castle and remain there. She would have gladly welcomed a young woman, young twin girls, a near-sighted prince. But none visited her.

Just what would it have taken to release the princess from this spell?

Simple. A human being, any human being, need only step one foot in the castle. And it is not as though the castle were hidden. It lay right out in plain sight. Sure, the castle looked abandoned to anyone standing outside of it. Abandoned, but not at all threatening. The only problem was that nobody ever stood outside of it. Or passed it. Or even knew it existed.

The princess resides there to this day. Waiting for someone to step into the castle's courtyard. Or for her skin to finally accept the cold steel of a knife.

ÂŤ140Âť

Dawn Over Varnum’s Headquarters Mike Prykowski

«141»

Alone

Robert Davis

It was a sad funeral, as most funerals go. For Sarah it was heartwrenching. She and Aaron had been married twenty years and suddenly he was gone. A model of health, he had toiled twelve hours a day as a master carpenter, was in the best of shape, and should have lived a long life. It was not to be.

With no children to deliver the eulogy and neither Aaron's brothers nor his best friends up to it, Sarah trooped up to the pulpit and for nearly an hour went on about his life and his legacy, bringing the congregation to tears – and the minister to a near fit since he had another service to follow.

Pretty rare in this small village to have two go in one day, but one accepts what God commands.

Sarah wiped a few tears from her eyes, glanced at the crowd of more than two hundred townspeople (the church overflowing like it was Easter or Christmas Eve) and began in soft tones, so low the mourners had to lean forward in their seats and strain to hear her. No one dared miss a word.

"I met Aaron during history class in the old schoolhouse. 'Who's that boy in the other aisle staring at me?' I said to myself and stared back, studying his curly red hair, vivid green eyes, broad chin and ears too big for his face. Later, he told me he said the same thing to himself, wondering who I was. (I hoped he didn't find my ears too big.) After school that day, we exchanged hellos, albeit bashful and tongue-tied, and before you knew it were inseparable.

"Inseparable is putting it mildly. We became best friends for life.

A week after graduation, I thought I was in a family way and we quickly married." Sarah tried not to blush as she explained. "Of course, it was a false alarm. I wasn't with child. As everyone knows, we never had children." She paused to dry her eyes before continuing. "If only I had a son or daughter to help me face the times ahead without him."

Now Sarah took out a handkerchief to blow her nose and half the congregation followed suit. When the commotion subsided, she continued, between soft sobs, about their extraordinary union and what a wonderful person Aaron had been, "more than a gentleman, a gentle man whom everyone admired." She spun one anecdote after another about their life together, then thanked the assembly for their love and support and finally deferred to the minister.

Three minutes and the reverend was finished, no intention of upstaging the young widow with one of his put-people-to-sleep sermons.

And little could he add to her thoughts and ruminations. ÂŤ142Âť

Sarah's mourning didn't stop following the funeral. The first week she visited the cemetery every day, then settled into a weekly regimen. Nor was it a fleeting sojourn. She lingered at the grave for an hour or more, not just to spend time with her beloved, but she found the setting spellbinding.

It was another world.

Located many miles from the village, it took her and her horse Abbey almost an hour to get there, the stillness of the dirt roads disturbed only by the squeaking of the wheels of her buggy and the neighs spewing from the mare.

High on a hill – some days she sensed she could touch the clouds – you knew anyone buried there had gone to heaven, rather than the other place. She loved the desolate feel, the peaceful aura, the isolation. It was as if she and Aaron were the only people on earth – or down there in the ground. No problem talking to yourself, or to a spouse who had been snatched away.

Resting against his tombstone, or often sitting next to the grave snuggled beside him, Sarah reflected on their life together, the peaks and valleys, the pleasures and heartbreaks experienced in the brief two decades of their marriage – the only real downside the absence of children. For years, they had tried to have offspring, but nothing happened and they resigned themselves to a childless marriage.

Finished with her musings, Sarah turned directly to Aaron and spoke to him as though he were alive. She told him about her week, what she did with her days and nights, and discussed events that had happened in the world. And it was as if he responded to her news and talked back.

She loved to talk politics, even though women's suffrage was years away: "I don't understand why President Hayes keeps fighting Congress.

I can't wait for his term to end. Aaron, you would be enraged." She could almost see him nod in agreement.

She kept him up to date on the progress of the farm. "The land is coming along fine, Aaron. We had a great corn crop this summer...The wheat? It's doing better than expected...Yes, I have part-time workers to perform the hard chores...Don't worry, I'm ready for a rough winter. I have plenty of coal in the bin."

Sarah never ran out of conversation and the hour always flew. It was not as if Aaron wasn't there. He was there, just a few feet away. And without fail, she blew him a kiss at the close of her visit, just as on her arrival.

A year passed and she spent more time than ever with him. An hour and a half, often two hours, never at a loss for words. Or thoughts or memories.

She persisted with her weekly trips, even though the excursions to the cemetery turned more and more strenuous. Arriving back home, she «143»

ravaged the icebox for leftovers and it was off to bed.

Wondering if her exhaustion was caused by the weight she'd put on, Sarah tried to diet but to no avail. The pounds kept adding up, her once trim figure gone.

She sent a message to the town doctor and related her problem.

"Sarah, stay away from fattening foods, try to eat less," he messaged back. "If the problem persists, come and see me. I'll give you a complete exam."

Difficult to restrain from overeating, the weight continued to pile on. But she put off a visit to the doctor. Doctors are for the sick. Except for the tired feeling, she had never felt better in her life. Besides, it was a two hour trip and she wasn't up to such a journey. Nor, she figured, was Abbey.

Her mother urged her to see the doctor. "Sarah, maybe you're—" Sarah didn't let her finish. "Impossible! The only man I've ever been with has been Aaron. No, Mama, I'm not in a family way."

She was wrong. Almost two years after Aaron's passing, a baby boy arrived: Curly red hair, vivid green eyes, broad chin, and ears much too big for his face.

«144»

Art, Music and Communications

Transmission Rick McKenzie

The world's surrounded by broadcasts, From dishes, towers, servers, satellites.

News n' views, financial and political, Sales and social and resale and ranting And advertisement advertisement advertisement, Infini-Gig mendacity and Hi-Def pretense In all the most effective codes, Are available for unceasing reception.

All the little bits, each one made by people Combine and re-combine, outside of human rules Into the message no one can know all of, But everyone encounters almost all the time.

Of course it changes brains: data fiends in cyber beans.

The massive, endless message puts such pressure on the mind It simply has to shrink, or thin out, leaving room For unrestricted action by the message.

ÂŤ146Âť

Billy

Dianne M. Buxton

Magic enchanter arms raised Is he innocent Can he be In the dimness, voice cradling the room The light changes catching the glitter of the garment Gleaming teal rivers rush up to his face But already, head thrown back, the light changes again A magenta moon sculpts hollows of darkness His eyes glower like a captive in some Terrible and beautiful allurement He sings of rain and hummingbirds Each listener lost in their own evening The ri vers converge, he smiles and an ocean Of mysterious midnight thrashes over them Then a whisper like a swooning kiss Draws, the gentle undertow; He slows it all down and space races by A galaxy or two catching on the generous shirtsleeves.

Listeners, strewn about, beached on unknown shores, Keep faith as the chorus starts again The light turns yellow, desert dunes shift Across the cheekbones, throat, slide down his shoulder One more sharp intake of breath They're all inside him, waiting The last note so soft, a child's sigh in sleep They dream their mother caresses their temple: It's over, he owned them And they don't know what to do.

ÂŤ147Âť

White Flowers Hayley Gibson

«148»

Virginia At Dusk Plynn Gutman

She did not want to walk on water, yet they waited for her to step glistening strides off the shore of the world, her reflection on the water's surface flowing in smooth, even ripples, a soft symphony near the close of day, when the sun offers grey on blue, rose on orange in a swirl of clouds, a backdrop to add to the glory of it.

They stood at the edge of the world holding her silhouette in the awe of their rounded mouths, hands pressed to their chests to keep their hearts in place.

They wanted her to bring home the gold hidden in the sun's last rays, for Orion to gather himself from the sky and escort her triumphant return.

But she wanted none of it.

So she slipped smooth rocks into the pockets of her coat and sank to the bottom of the world, leaving them to watch bubbles rise from her last breath, their distorted reflections rippling goodbye along the water's surface.

ÂŤ149Âť

Steinbeck Wrote In Pencil Barbara Tramonte

Steinbeck wrote in pencil on yellow legal paper Like God writes white clouds in the sky.

Steinbeck wrote in pencil so I do tonight but I am weak.

I write in pencil because I cannot find a pen.

Every drawer turns up spare string or uncollected pennies but I cannot find a pen.

Yet Steinbeck wrote in pencil to maintain a characteristic and once he lost respect for a friend because he couldn't find a dictionary in his friend's whole house.

Next day I bought a large, red leather dictionary.

Ain't no wonderful Steinbeck Gonna make me feel illiterate.

ÂŤ150Âť

Creating New Visions

Peace

Cathryn Ferrari

«152»

The Women of Sparta

Kelly Ruegner and Jake Jasinski

The treatment and status of most women in ancient society, especially Athens, would probably seem rather barbaric to the modern First World citizen. Marriages were enacted for the sole purpose of procreation, and the average married man sought sexual satisfaction from numerous sources anyway. These marriages were, generally speaking, extremely lopsided relationships in which husband took advantage of and lorded over wife. Most ancient Greek women were not considered citizens and were excluded from almost all public affairs. Additionally, these women were not permitted to inherit or own property, and received little to no education. As some experts on the actions of Helen of Troy may argue, most women in ancient Greece were generally considered to be little more than the property of their husbands and fathers. It is in this fundamentally misogynistic society where we find the average Spartan woman, and see her uniqueness in the ancient world shine all the brighter.

Spartan women were unique in Greek society because they occupied a much more respected position in their city-state and wielded influence more relative to their male counterparts than did their contemporary Greek sisters. While their primary role in society remained that of wife and mother, the women of Sparta had a palpable degree of social and economic power. They received quality education, openly spoke their minds to their husbands and held sway in domestic affairs. They managed their home’s finances and property while their husbands and fathers were off at war -which was quite often- and they were even expected to rise up in arms in defense of their homeland, should Sparta be attacked, while its army was away (Fowler, 145). Although they still were not permitted to vote, Spartan women possessed a great deal of autonomy. Perhaps without fully realizing it, they were truly pioneers of women’s rights in the ancient world.

In the early stages of their lives, Spartan women were essentially equal to Spartan men. Written Spartan law emphasized a requirement that healthy female infants and children receive the same childcare and nutrition as Spartan boys. Benefits for Spartan women also extended into the Greek practice of exposure. It may have been common for a malformed or sickly male infant in Sparta to be exposed to the elements and abandoned to die, but this practice was also commonly applied to perfectly healthy, yet unwanted, daughters in many of the other Greek city-states. One can speculate that this cruelty to girls was influenced in part by the pressure placed on a Greek father, who decided the fate of his daughter, to pay an often expensive dowry to marry off his child. These fathers would «153»

essentially abandon their daughters to avoid financial burden. In Sparta however, dowries were essentially outlawed, and the practice of exposing infants was, in their minds, justified by the assumption that unhealthy babies would make poor soldiers (Jopson). Therefore, given the lack of evidence of female infant exposure in Sparta, one can deduce, that these girls were not subject to the type of inspection that males were, and that abandoning female infants to the elements was an extraordinarily rare practice in Sparta; if it took place at all. A woman’s life seemed to hold more value in Spartan society than it did in Athens, where young girls, if allowed to live, were more often subjected to mistreatment, malnutrition and neglect.

The childhoods of Spartan girls also resembled those of their brothers. In cities like Athens and Corinth, girls were essentially forced to stay at home and were rarely publically educated, whereas, Spartan girls were allowed to attend public school, often participated in dances and choirs, and were encouraged to play sports. Interestingly enough, and contrary to popular assumption, Spartan education was not all about warfare and physical fitness. One socio-cultural similarity that Spartans did actually seem to share with other Greeks was a penchant for rhetoric, literacy and philosophical thought. Along with their military prowess, Spartan citizens prided themselves on their culture and ethics, which, they believed, made their society superior to those of the other Greeks with whom they vied for power (Sienkewicz 2).

In Sparta, it was a widely held belief that the actions of each citizen should, first and foremost, be in the best interests of the state. Strong evidence of this statement can be found when one consults records of Spartan burial rituals. In Sparta, a deceased citizen’s grave was marked by a tombstone for one of two reasons. The deceased was either a man who died in battle or a woman who died in childbirth (Jopson). Both of these actions were seen as services to Sparta. Women were honored for bringing healthy Spartan workers and soldiers into the world. This was seen as their most sacred duty. As alien to the modern reader as this attitude toward childbirth may sound, it may have inadvertently lent protection to Spartan women from the under-aged sex and pregnancy often forced upon girls of other cultures in their contemporary time period.

When Spartan girls reached puberty and sexual maturity, they were not rushed into marriage as quickly as were their sisters throughout the ancient world, who suffered physical injury from premature sex, often died young in childbirth and -perhaps most importantly in Sparta- gave birth to unhealthy children. In fact, in the interest of preventing these evils form taking place, Spartan law allowed marriage only to women who had reached an age to “enjoy sexual intercourse” (Knights 1). Researchers speculate that the reasoning behind this belief was that to commit a sex act with a girl not yet old enough to understand sexual intimacy was to commit «154»

an act of violence. There are clear echoes of this philosophy in many countries in the present day. It is extremely significant, and exceptional for the day, that Spartans condemned and discouraged violence inside marriage, and recognized that sex with a child is abusive. In the marriages between Spartan men and women, acts of adultery and extra-marital affairs were also generally looked down upon. Married men were expected to stay loyal to their wives. No married man was to have intercourse with another woman unless his wife agreed to that arrangement. Spartan women also did not marry men much older than themselves, as was customary in other parts of ancient Greece. It is estimated that husband and wife in the typical Spartan marriage were within four to five years of age of one another.

It is true that most of these laws and customs were in the best interests of procreation, but the implications on domestic life transcend practicality and move on to affect society in more subtle, yet inevitable ways.

“The fact that much of Sparta's concern was for the production of healthy children does not detract from the fact that the laws protected girls from early marriage; all Greek marriages were for procreation, but in other cities men were willing to accept the inevitable higher death rates and other physical consequences of forcing sex on young girls for the sake of indulging their own preference for sex with children” (Schrader 2).

One of the aforementioned effects on society was that these practices fundamentally changed the chemistry of a Spartan man’s relationship to his wife. She was able to contend with her husband on the same emotional and intellectual level, and he generally respected her for this quality. Generally speaking, Spartan women did not fear their husbands, and Spartan husbands listened to their wives. There was a sense of collaboration in the ideal ancient Spartan household that was simply not felt within homes in many other areas of the world. There is a wonderful example of this attitude in a story about Gorgo, the wife of King Leonidas.

She was asked how and why Spartan women were the only women in Greece who "ruled" their husbands. She replied, "Because we are the only women who give birth to men." The scholarly consensus is that she made this remark to emphasize her belief that only men with the self-confidence to treat his wife as an equal is truly a man at all (Schrader 2).

Spartan women had responsibilities that demonstrated their equality to men. Women took care of the land and estate while the men were away at battle doing their duty in their military. They controlled the family wealth and ensured that the dues of their sons were paid to the state. The position of Spartan women was also a quite flexible one. They were known «155»

to control the welfare of their families in the domestic setting as well as govern and finance the land they could own themselves. This situation was completely opposite for the women of Athens. Athenian women were not permitted to control the money needed to buy food and grains to feed their families. Once again, the issue of dowries rears its ugly head. In Athenian society, women were unable to inherit money from their fathers when they died. This was because anything the father may have left to his daughter would instead go directly to her husband as an additional dowry.

In contrast, Spartan women were able to inherit both land and wealth. Men in Sparta trusted their wives to take care of their belongings and ensure continued prosperity. These men were away too often and for far too long to manage these responsibilities independently. Women took control and acquired the skills needed to work and rule the household (Pomeroy 33).

Spartan women were notorious for having their opinions and proclaiming them to the men. To the dismay of many, the men actually listened to what the women had to say and considered their opinions while making decisions. This is the extent of our factual knowledge regarding how the household of a Spartan was managed, but this respect clearly extended into romantic relationships as well.

In order to understand the dynamics of the relationships between Spartan men and women, one must first understand the scholarly opinions about the nature of the duality of Spartan society created by the two sexes.

There are essentially two views on how men and women interacted. The older of the two theories suggests that Sparta was a very sexually segregated society in which a man might not see his wife in the light until he was well into his thirties. The idea is that all Spartan men, subsequent to their induction into Agoge, which is the Spartan military training program, spent the majority of their lives in camps, separated from the opposite sex. Scholars, who support this theory, cite Spartan marriage ritual. They paint it as a sacred practice in which a woman shaves her head and dons a man’s robes and the groom comes into her chamber to consummate the relationship. They speculate that ancient Sparta was a predominantly homosexual society, and that this ritual was performed in homage to that assumption (Knights 3). The newer, counter argument suggests that the men and women were raised together as young children, and this integration affected their relationships into adulthood. Men and women, when they were to be married, probably knew a great deal about their mates. Even before marriage one knew everything about the other. Given assumptions about human nature, the marriage ritual is seen by some as a young man and woman running away together, doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing, and using disguise and misdirection to mask their intentions.

The treatment and actions of Spartan women were truer to the cultural beliefs seen in our society than those of any other ancient Greek «156»

city-state. They arguably made some of the first meaningful steps toward gender equality in the western world. Women were freer to do as they pleased and were not so withheld from resources and devoid of talent that they could not survive and prosper on their own. Spartan women were seen as equal partners in the state. This fact alone made them extraordinary in ancient Greek society.

ÂŤ157Âť

Income and Happiness Katie Starrantino

Many of us have heard the saying, “Money doesn’t buy happiness”. Some may have accepted this statement, while others disagree. A simple Google search of “money and happiness” yields over 185,000,000 results. Among these results are books that claim they can help the reader earn money and be happy! Opinions also pop up in the search. Some state that of course money buys happiness while others disagree and substitute different ideas for what makes us happy. Some ideas of what leads to happiness are love, good health and social support.

This paper will attempt to answer the question, “does money buy happiness”? If it does buy happiness, we can conclude that one is motivated to earn money in order to achieve happiness. If money does not buy happiness, we can conclude that an individual who is motivated to earn a high salary is not doing so in order to achieve happiness. If money is only a part of what buys us happiness, how much income does an individual need in order to be happy?

In his book, The Psychology of Happiness, Samuel Franklin writes that “happiness requires the satisfaction of many needs” (Franklin, 2010).

Those who subscribe to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would agree that certain needs must be satisfied before we can find happiness. These needs include shelter, food, water and security. Is money one of the needs that an individual must obtain in order to achieve happiness?

“Does happiness grow with our paychecks? In the United States as a whole, the answer is clearly no” asserts Dr. David G. Myers. Myers, author of The Pursuit of Happiness explains that American wealth is on the rise yet our satisfaction with our lives is declining, suggesting that money is not a factor in how happy we are. A study from Princeton University disagrees, saying yes, we must have money in order to be happy, and the magic number is $75,000 a year (Kahneman, Deaton, 2010). Time magazine reports on the study, which found “the lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness.” (Luscombe, 2010)

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton conducted the study mentioned above. Kahneman and Deaton “analyzed the responses of 450,000 Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009” (Luscombe, 2010). Participants of this poll were questioned about how they had felt the day before and if the life they were living was the “best possible life for them” (Luscombe, 2010). In addition, «158»

participants were also asked about their income. After careful analyzing, Kahneman and Deaton found that those who earned less than $75,000 felt more beaten down by the problems that they already had (Kahneman, Deaton 2010). Participants who earned $75,000 or more had the same problems, but did feel weighed down by them. As Belinda Luscombe writes, “Having money clearly takes the sting out of adversities” (Luscombe, 2010).

Research from the National Opinion Research Center agrees with the recent research done at Princeton University. The National Opinion Research Center conducted a happiness study in 1994. The participant’s annual household income was recorded and then these individuals were asked to give their happiness rating. Happiness rating options were: very happy, pretty happy, not too happy. The income group with the highest mean happiness rating was the group that earned $75,000 or higher (Easterlin, 2001).

It certainly seems as though research has proved higher income equals happier people. Richard Easterlin, author of Income and Happiness: Toward a Unified Theory, agrees with the idea that money can buy happiness. He writes “at a point in time, those with more income are, on average, happier than those with less” (Easterlin, 2001). However, he goes on to state that over the life cycle, an individual’s happiness will remain the same, despite “substantial income growth” (Easterlin, 2001). Easterlin gives the example of older adults. He proposes that there is no corresponding advance in the happiness of older adults whose income has grown substantially. He also states that older adults whose income is leveling out or declining, do not experience a decrease in happiness. “He contends that people in poor countries are as happy as those of rich welfare states, and that decades of economic growth have left people no happier than before.”

(Veenhoven, 2003)

Ruut Veenhoven disagrees with Easterlin’s idea of income and happiness. Her research shows that individuals in poor countries are the least happy and she has determined this by re-analyzing Easterlin’s data and by examining a “new, more representative sample of countries” (Veenhoven, 2003). Veenhoven’s research illustrates that “post-war economic recovery (in Western Europe) was paralleled by an increase in happiness.”

(Veenhoven, 2003). Veenhoven believes that if an individual has met Maslow’s basic needs then the next step in order to achieve happiness is to become wealthy.

It may be true that money has something to do with happiness, but not everything to do with it. Findings from the World Values Survey have found that “happiness has in fact risen substantially in most countries” (Inglehart, 2006). The World Values Survey agrees with Veenhoven that people of rich countries “tend to be happier” (Inglehart, 2006) than those «159»

living in poor countries. However, the survey suggests that (“controlling for economic factors”) (Inglehart, 2006) some societies are happier than others.

These happier societies “are those that allow people the freedom to choose how to live their lives” (Inglehart, 2006). The World Values Survey proves this point by citing that Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada (all ranking in the top 10 happiest countries in the world) have “tolerant social norms and democratic political systems” (Inglehart, 2006).

If we subscribe to the research conducted by Kahneman and Deaton at Princeton, the National Opinion Research Center, Ruth Veenhoven and the World Values Survey we would believe the money does, in fact, buy happiness (even if just in part). Now, the question becomes, how does money motivate us? If our ultimate goal is to achieve happiness, and to obtain happiness we must have money, in what ways are we motivated to earn more? An annual survey conducted by the American Council on Education found that 69% of students believed an important reason to attend college was to earn more money (Myers, 1993). 66.5% of these students listed “the chief benefit of college” as a way to increase “one’s earning power” (Myers, 1993).

No matter where you side on this topic, it is undeniable that people are motivated by money. In our everyday life we see the motivation to earn money. A large majority of college students earn their degrees in order to make more money. We wake up each day and head off to work in order to bring home a paycheck at the end of the week. Millions flock to buy lottery tickets in the hopes they will win an absurd amount of money.

Money-hungry contestants sign up for game shows that offer prize money.

Hundreds shuffle into casinos each day, sitting at machines or tables for hours and waiting for their monetary reward. Aristotle believed that human behaviors have a goal and that final goal is “fulfillment or happiness”.

(Franklin, 2010). If this is true, are these people working for money so that they will be fulfilled and happy?

It seems as though the jury is still out on the effects income has on happiness. Findings from Princeton University and the National Opinion Research Center suggest that individuals making $75,000 or more will be the happiest. Ruth Veenhoven’s research shows that individuals living in poor countries are the least happy. Richard Easterlin disagrees with these studies, explaining that money may buy us happiness for a short period of time but that happiness will remain the same throughout the life cycle, despite financial growth. As in many topics in psychology and in life, perhaps the answer is a little bit of both. Perhaps, having financial stability along with love, family, friends, etc., results in happiness.

With positive psychology on the rise, there is now great stress on bettering the individual. Many people have been empowered to become the best they can be. Consumers rush out to purchase self-help books, tune in «160»

daily to watch self-help gurus like Dr. Phil, and schedule appointments with therapists. One of the biggest self-help gurus at this time is Suze Orman, who, you guessed it, publishes books and has a television show designed to help viewers and readers earn more money!

Happiness is one of the most important goals that humans strive for. Because of this fact, it is imperative that research in the field of happiness and income continue. If a researcher can determine what amount of income is needed in order to achieve true happiness, those who are interested in finding happiness can strive for this goal. If research finds that money does not effect happiness, our society may let go of our materialistic ways and start living our lives in other ways that make us happy, such as helping others, spending time with family or enjoying activities such as reading or painting. Learning how income effects happiness (or how it does not) would be a leap for positive psychology as well as all those who are interested in bettering themselves.

It is frustrating to find scholarly articles that are in disagreement with one another. Future researchers who study income and happiness should leave no room for criticism within their study. They must cover each and every base so that their findings are plausible and cannot be easily proved wrong. It would be interesting for a researcher studying this topic to put a longitudinal study in place. Then we would be able to learn if more money throughout a lifetime is equal to more happiness throughout a lifetime.

References Franklin, S (2010). The Psychology of Happiness: A Good Human Life Easterlin, R. (July 2001). Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory.

Kahneman, D. & Deaton, A. (September 2010). Does Money Buy Happiness?: A Brief Summary of “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life But Not Emotional Well Being.

Inglehart, Welzel & Foa (2006). Happiness Trends in 24 Countries.

Luscombe, B. (September, 2010). Do We Need $75,000 a Year to be Happy?

Myers, D. (1993). The Pursuit of Happiness: Discovering the Pathway to

Fulfillment, Well-Being, and Enduring Personal Joy. Veenhoven, R. (2003). Wealth and Happiness Revisited: Growing National

Income Does Go With Greater Happiness.

Pryor, J., Hurtado S., Sharkness, J., Korn, W., DeAngelo, L., Romero, L., Tran, S.

(2008). The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2008.

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Interview with Doris and Roger Sinclair Erika Harris

For this assignment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Doris and Roger Sinclair. The Sinclair's have been married for 47 years. I found that remarkable and thought that they would make very interesting subjects for this assignment. They were incredibly gracious with their time and delighted in answering my questions and taking me along for a trip down memory Jane.

Doris and Roger met very early in life and have known each other for more than 60 years. They are both originally from Philadelphia, having been born into families that relocated here from the rural south. Doris' mother was a schoolteacher; her father was a highly skilled carpenter.

Roger's mother never worked outside of the home and his father owned his own business. They were raised in the Germantown section of the city and both have been lifelong members of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church (ETBC). ETBC holds the distinction of being the oldest African American Baptist Church in Philadelphia, dating its origin back more than l30 years.

Today, ETBC is the largest congregation in Philadelphia. The Sinclair's met in Sunday School and were married at the age of 19. Their union has produced two daughters, two sons, and a host of grand and greatgrandchildren.

When we met for the interview, Mr. Sinclair had recently had surgery and was not feeling his best. He deferred to his wife for most of the interview but would nod his head or be sure to chime in if he felt that she did not have the details quite right. It was incredibly sweet and endearing to witness the tenderness with which they treated one another. Mrs. Sinclair is such a dainty and lady-like doll, at times she would look at her husband from the corner of her eye and he would wink back at her. Mr. Sinclair is the epitome of cool; it is evident that they are both incredibly in love, even after nearly a century of marriage.

Family and their unwavering faith are central to their union. They are both devout Baptists and attend church each Sunday. Family dinners on Sunday afternoon are a weekly event with the entire extended family and many close friends attending. Mr. Sinclair shared that as the patriarch of the family, he looks towards Sunday afternoon dinners as an opportunity to "put his eyes" on everyone. He feels that it may be possible to avoid or cover up issues in conversations had via phone, but in person, the eyes tell it all. He "puts eyes", to borrow his phrase, on the members of his family and makes it a point to have a direct exchange with each of them at some point during their family time. This dialogue with family brings him peace and ÂŤ162Âť

sets him at ease; he becomes concerned if a member of the family begins to miss dinners consistently. One daughter has relocated to Chicago with her family and he worries about them a great deal. Not for any determined reason, he just feels the distance is too great. He delighted in sharing with me that his grandchildren have taught him how to Skype and that he can also send text messages with his cell phone.

The Sinclair's observe all of the traditional Christian holidays.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners are family events, hosted by Doris and Roger. Mrs. Sinclair shared that her years are winding down as the host for these vents and that she is looking forward to her daughter or one of her daughters-in-law taking on the tradition. Mr. Sinclair was definitely not in agreement and chided her that she had at least ten additional years before considering giving up . her role. Her mother hosted holiday meals until she took on the honor and has hosted them faithfully each year for longer than she can remember. Her children are not yet ready for her to hang up her apron either.

Roger and Doris are very traditional and both are recently retired.

They both attended Temple University and Mr. Sinclair served in the military. Mrs. Sinclair worked as a school nurse in the Philadelphia public school system and Mr. Sinclair worked for the City of Philadelphia as an accountant. Even though they both worked outside of the home, they have taken on traditional roles within the family structure. Mr. Sinclair is recognized as the patriarch and head of the family. Mrs. Sinclair believes that within a Christian home, a wife of a god-fearing man should be submissive and allow him to have ultimate responsibility for the family, as God holds him accountable for headship of his family. The example that she provides is that of Moses and Adam and states that God always called the man, even when his question was of the woman as the man is held accountable for the wellbeing of his family. She went on to explain that the husband in a union has a great burden and that being submissive is not about being blindly led or being subjected to your husband's whim or mercy, but that he is to view his wife as his partner and always have her best interest at heart. She provided Ephesians 5:25-27 as context that husbands are called to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loved the church. Putting their wives good even ahead of their own and relished in knowing that the burden is not hers but Mr. Sinclair's. He agreed wholeheartedly and added that as headship his responsibility is to care for his wife, children, and children's children first and foremost, leaving himself for last.

Given Mr. Sinclair's education in accounting, it makes sense that he manages the household finances. Decisions are made jointly with Mr. Sinclair having the final say in matters great or small. He shared that he engages Mrs. Sinclair's counsel and carefully weighs her perspective in the rare case that they find themselves at opposite ends of an issue. The both ÂŤ163Âť

agreed that they are so closely connected and consider one another their best friend that it rarely is the case that they don't see eye to eye. Mrs. Sinclair shared that she has a way of softly encouraging her husband and can usually convince him to agree with her. We laughed about her saying Mr. Sinclair may be the head but she definitely is the neck and is very good at getting him to see things her way.

The Sinclair's have encountered many storms during the course of their 47-year marriage. Mr. Sinclair shared quite freely that he once drank more than he should and as a result, at time he was not as available to his wife and children. He believes in being committed and stated that his only mistress was a bottle. He credits his wife with enduring through those years and covering for him with his children. His children were never aware of his indulgence. Mrs. Sinclair also agreed that Mr. Sinclair's drinking placed the greatest stress upon their marriage and said that threatening to take their children and move in with her parents forced Mr. Sinclair to choose his family. This occurred very early in their marriage and they have been able to restore their union and establish a very solid foundation as a result of this trial. They both attribute being college educated and shrewd with money as enabling them to avoid financial concerns that plague most marriages. They are also very proud to have sent each of their children to college.

Doris and Roger dote upon one another and each delight in surprising and doing romantic things for each other. It is apparent that Mr. Sinclair spoils is wife. Their home is beautifully appointed and well cared for. They each drive late model automobiles and are a very attractive couple. Mrs. Sinclair enjoys cooking all ofMr. Sinclair's favorite foods and likes to take care of him and remind him to keep up with his exercise and health. They vacation together and with friends several times each year and have been to many fascinating and exciting places. They are active in the couple's ministry at church and attend a couples retreat twice annually. They also mentioned that they have never stopped dating, and believe that is the secret to keeping a marriage alive and interesting. They believe that many couples are caught up in their day-to-day activities and forget to care for the one who is closest them. They each agreed early in their marriage to make each other their first priority and to hold each other sacred and not take one another for granted. They also believe the examples that they had of parents who had successful marriages helped to provide a blueprint for their success. The tradition appears to be continuing, as each of their children is also married to their original spouse.

Mrs. Sinclair believes that there are very few things that are worth getting upset and arguing about, and both are very easy going. They have designated their home as a sanctuary and escape from the outside world.

Serenity and calm are very important to both of them and they make it a ÂŤ164Âť

point to "bring their very best self' home. I asked them to share more about this and I was surprised by what a simple concept it really is. They believe that people are usually on their best behavior outside of the home and have the tendency to treat coworkers and even complete strangers with kindness and compassion. They went on to share that people use manners and say "please" and "thank you" , hold doors and show their very best selves to those who don't matter. They consciously remind themselves upon crossing their threshold that they owe it to one another to bring their best selves home and treat each other with the same care, kindness and compassion.

They also believe that they are accountable to one another to live healthy lifestyles to try to be around and healthy for as long as possible so as not to be a burden.

I learned so much about marriage and parenting during my interview with the Sinclair's. They were both incredibly gracious with their time and welcomed each one of my questions. At the end of my interview, they were kind enough to extend themselves further if I thought of anything later that I forgot to ask. I will be certain to carry the lessons that I learned about caring for my spouse into my next union and am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that I had to sit at the feet of these incredibly wise elders.

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Prothero/Islam Paper Megan DeLany

Stephen Prothero's God is Not One really opened my eyes to a completely different view of the Islamic religion and its followers, known as Muslims. Prior to reading the excerpt from this novel and listening to the podcast, I had absolutely little to no experience with Muslims and any views that I had received concerning the religion were not favorable. Naturally, these disparaging remarks were mainly about the events of September 11,2001 and the Muslim involvement in the tragedy, which I believe could be slightly justified at the time, at least in the case of those particular people who took part in the attacks. 1 think most Americans would agree with me about their general ignorance concerning Islam, and this stems mostly from the fact that I do not believe that I have ever met a practicing Muslim in real life, and the only times that I have heard about Islam is either in the classroom, in a movie, or on the news. The most recent exposure that I had to a Muslim was in viewing the film "Malcolm X." The religion was depicted in an extremely radical light and because of one individual's personal choice to react to their religion in that way, I think that I was perhaps a little more tainted about the religion's beliefs and followers.

If I were given the chance to ask Dr. Prothero questions about Muslim prayer, I would be mostly curious about how the actual act of praying became what it is today, and why some Muslims ignore the call to pray. Dr. Prothero described the ritual of praying in great detail, from the ways in which Muslims are alerted to the time (Internet, TV, etc.) and how they face Mecca while praying, and the positions in which they move (kneeling down, face completely to the floor, etc.). It seems as though it is a rather complicated method to go through five times a day, and while Dr. Prothero does explain how the positions are acts of worship and prostration, I have to wonder exactly how the entire prayer evolved into what it is now. I also found it interesting how some Muslims ignore the call to pray. I am assuming it is because not every Muslim is devout and chooses to follow the exact rules of Islam (similar to any other religion) but I wonder if this is considered to be a negative reaction. Granted, in the Catholic religion it can be viewed as 'bad' if a member does not attend church on a regular basis, but there are many people who choose not to for whatever reason and most people do not tend to judge. However. I had gotten the impression that most Muslims were very strict in their beliefs and less lenient when it came to praying, at least compared to other religions.

Dr. Prothero seems to have a favorable view of the Islamic religion. ÂŤ166Âť

He has clearly done a lot of research into the Quran and into the core belief systems of Muslims. I believe that Dr. Prothero admires Muhammad and his way of life; in the podcast, Dr. Prothero stated that, in his opinion, Muhammad was the most influential religious figure. However, Dr. Prothero does point out the hypocrisy within the religious dogma. There is continued talk of how Islam is a peaceful religion, yet he shows examples of text that calls for war. Dr. Prothero seems to also appreciate how straightforward and blunt the Quran actually is. The Bible tends to give more of an overview of things while the Quran talks about more of the specifics of life. In fact, there are several things to be admired about Islam (such as the five pillars and their meanings) and I believe that most people, including Dr. Prothero, would find them appealing. The idea of giving to charity, or being charitable, praying daily, and making a holy journey are all harmless and selfless ideals. I think that Dr. Prothero respects Islam and understands it a great deal because he clearly would not have gone through so much information and experience if he did not believe it to be a valid way of believing in something. As with any religion, Dr. Prothero is able to see the pros and cons of Islam and he seeks to understand what exactly drives the religion and its followers. He covers a great many topics in the reading, from the history of the religion to the facets of the religion and the beliefs of the religion. At that point, it would be hard for any person to ignore the quali ties and faults of that religion, and Dr. Prothero is able to handle both of them with a level ofrespect and just straightforward facts.

At this point in time, I feel that I have a general knowledge about Islam. I certainly am not aware of all the inner workings of the religion itself, but I am more aware of the fact that I was probably a little bit biased against Islam. Dr. Prothero was able to explain a lot about Muslims in just the short section that we read, and this helped me to understand that not all Muslims are so radical. It seems a shame that what is known in the world today is only from a bad perspective, but I can clearly see a lot more similarities between Christianity and Islam compared to before I read this.

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No Words for the Wise or Words for a Wise Few? Derick Loafmann

Geoffrey Chaucer worked for English royalty for over 30 years.

This fact appears strange when one considers the number of stories in The Canterbury Tales that challenge authority and conventional wisdom.

Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer pits the pious against the perverse, and traditional models and ideals against the new practicality and emerging working class ethic. "The General Prologue," for example, is full of seemingly virtuous characters with cracks in the facades of their perfections; a prioress with a brooch championing romantic love, a friar who has no time to help the poor, and a summoner who is often more guilty of sin than those he summons to court. On the other hand, those in less noble professions often appear less wholesome, but display more virtue; a rude, drunken miller who may take a little flour, but is affable and never deceitful about his character, a woman who shuns the role of submissive house wife to seek authority, and an uneducated manciple who works for the best and brightest minds in England, but can outwit each and everyone of them. Given this apparent distaste for the powerful, Chaucer seems like the kind of dissenter who might have quickly lost his job, his freedom, or even his life. As history tells us that this is not the case, Chaucer must have known how to navigate the treacherous waters of English nobility. Perhaps the best insight as to how Chaucer was able to achieve such a feat is found by studying the Manciple, "The Manciple's Prologue," and "The Manciple's Tale."

"The Manciple's Tale" begins with a description of Phebus as "the mooste lusty bachiler in al this world" (Man T 107-108) and proclaims him also "the beste archer" (l08). The Manciple goes on to give an example of Phebus's skill with his bow. In setting the stage with this description, the Manciple has made Phebus an apex of virility. As we see demonstrated throughout The Canterbury Tales, virility is a highly valued quality in medieval England; those who have it are typically admired for it, and those who lack it fake it. The Pardoner, for example, is one of the least virile characters on the pilgrimage, but in "The Wife of Bath's Prologue," he pretends to have decided not to take a wife in favor of his manly freedom.

In addition to virility, the Manciple's description of Phebus's gift for archery and report of Phebus's slaying of the serpent, gives Phebus a status as a hero. Lest anyone pigeonhole Phebus as merely a paragon of strength, the Manciple goes on to state that Phebus was a brilliant musician and singer, as well; "Pleyen he koude on every mynstralcie, / And syngen, that it was ÂŤ168Âť

a melodie / To heeren his cleere voys the soun" (Man T 113-115). The Manciple continues to praise Phebus as so handsome that his features need not even be listed. According to the Manciple's opening remarks, Phebus is also full of "geniillesse" (Man T 123) honor, and worthiness. These qualities set Phebus up as the most perfect living being on the face of the earth.

However, it is important to note that Chaucer keeps his description human.

Peter C. Herman argues this humanity implies that Chaucer's message is not about immortals, but about the ruling class; "Chaucer plays down Phebus's divinity in order to highlight Phebus's social worth, his symbolizing the nobleman's nobleman" (320). The Manciple has not only made his protagonist a worthy hero, but a hero among heroes.

As if these traits were not enough, the Manciple awards Phebus a prized possession, a white crow. This bird is not unique simply for his color, but also because he can sing more beautifully than any nightingale. Not only can this white crow sing, but it can also tell stories and impersonate any man. Once again, Phebus is reportedly the source of these admirable qualities; "Now hadde this Phebus in his hous a crowe, / Which in a cage he fostred many a day, / And taughte it speken as men teche ajay" (Man T130132). What the reader draws from this description is that Phebus is not only a great lover, a skilled archer, a gifted musician, extremely good-looking, honorable, and worthy, but he is also caring enough to raise a caged bird.

Not only can Phebus keep this beautiful bird, but he is patient and diligent enough to teach the bird to sing, tell stories, and do impressions of different voices. Phebus's long list of positive traits and impressive deeds make him seem like the closest being to perfection in the world. Though, in keeping with Herman's perspective, these traits are more superhuman than divine.

Finally, the Manciple gives us a flaw in character by telling us that Phebus was prone to jealousy. Even this concession, though, is couched among descriptions of Phebus's love and dutiful treatment of his wife.

The Manciple makes a short digression on the pointless nature of closely monitoring one's wife following this comment, "A good wyfthat is clene ofwerk and thought / Sholde nat kept in noon awayt, certain. / And trewely the labour is in vayn / To keep a shrewe, for it wol nat bee" (Man T 148151). What is worth noting here is that the Manciple does not blame any of this misguided action against Phebus. By making his point about human nature in a digression, the Manciple keeps his protagonist's lofty image unscathed by a fool's errand. Furthermore, by arguing that infidelity is inherent to a person's nature, the Manciple is able to heap the entire load of blame for the indiscretion upon Phebus's wife, and leave Phebus himself guiltless in the adulterated sanctity of their marriage. The tactics of hiding flaw amid praise and deflecting blame to others is perhaps the most important part of the Manciple's, and by extension Chaucer's, approach to criticizing superiors, which will be discussed in more detail later in this ÂŤ169Âť

essay.

The build up of Phebus's image is done so that his fall appears more dramatic. When the white crow tells Phebus of his wife's betrayal, Phebus immediately snaps. After using his golden bow to kill his wife, Phebus turns on the crow stealing his song, stripping him of his plumage, and turning his color and his descendents' feathers black. Phebus unleashes his rage on more than just the living; he also breaks his instruments, his arrows, and his golden bow. The lesson stated by the Manciple is that one should never tell a man of his wife's infidelities. Protracting this lesson, the Manciple advocates restraint when givi ng any sort 0 f bad news for fear of reprisal.

In fact, the Manciple warns against talking too much about any negative circumstance, "keepe wel thy tonge and keepe thy freend, / A wikked is worse than any Ieend" (Man T 319-320). Honoring the moral of "The Manciple's Tale," one may contend. is how Chaucer managed to work for the powerful English court for' over three decades.

In Chaucer's time, a man whose wife committed adultery was considered a fool, the charge being grave for a member of nobility. The idea was that if a man could not govern his wife, then he could not govern his land. For this reason, "bedding the wife of one's lord was especially dangerous because all medieval Europe considered the crime as heinous as murdering one's lord" (Herman 321). Due to medieval European nobility's sensitivity to and anxiety of being undermined, criticism was viewed in a similar light. In conjunction with the proximity to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, criticism of tradition and power was particularly dangerous during Chaucer's time. Therefore, it appears reasonable to conclude that Chaucer concurred with the Manciple's mother; that one should "keepe welthy tonge" (Man T 319).

There are serious flaws in this conclusion, however. The first piece of evidence is against such a theory is The Canterbury Tales. If Chaucer truly believed in verbal restraint, embarking on a project of composing one hundred and twenty tales, not including prologues, would completely undermine that notion. Even though Harry Bailey appears to reconsider the scale of his contest, undertaking the composition of thirty tales and prologues, would call the validity of the Manciple's moral, and by the prior interpretation Chaucer's, advice into question; if one is to hold one's tongue when giving bad news or finding fault, one would 'not write a lengthy book loaded with ideas that attack members of the clergy and question traditional wisdom and authority. If, as the Manciple's mother stated, "in muchel speche synne wanteth naught" (Man T 338), then surely a lengthy collection of tales would provide ample opportunity for sin to do as it pleases.

To this point, some might argue that Chaucer's "Retraction" addresses this concern for sin in an abundance of speech. However, this does not account for the fact that Chaucer kept The Canterbury Tales in ÂŤ170Âť

existence rather than destroying the manuscript. While the Manciple tells us his mother laments, "he that hath mysseyd, I dar wel sayn, / He may by no wey clepe his word again" (Man T 353-354), Chaucer is not bound by these rules having written The Canterbury Tales, not spoken them. So while Chaucer does beg forgiveness from sins in his "Retraction," he does not withdraw the story of this pilgrimage, nor does Chaucer retract the tales told by the pilgrims. Such action aligns much closer to the actions of the Manciple than to the stated lesson of his tale. This introduces the "The Manciple's Prologue" as further evidence that Chaucer is more apt to speak than hold his tongue.

If "The Manciple's Prologue" and the existence of The Canterbury Tales, despite the "Retraction," do indeed teach Chaucer's intended lesson, then the moral is more about speaking carefully than remaining quiet. Once again, one may glimpse Chaucer's method of remaining in the favor of the very people he criticized through the actions of the Manciple. Much like the interaction with the Cook in "The Manciple's Prologue," the Manciple softens the blow in the faults he finds in Phebus, who stands as a symbol for the nobility. "The Manciple ... qualifies and meliorates by final words and actions - in a sense, retracts - criticism that is indeed given, and hence he presumably survives in the good graces of the criticized" (Storm 118). Whi Ie Mel Storm is discussing the interaction with the Cook, the same may be said of the Manciple as narrator of Phebus, the immortal nobleman. A link between the Manciple and Chaucer is evident as both men serve noble masters; while the Manciple's service is to the nobleman's tale, Chaucer's service is to the English crown. The Manciple and Chaucer each survive their respective critiques unscathed. The same cannot be said, however, of Phebus's crow.

The lesson, therefore, lies in the difference between the manner in which the Manciple and Phebus's crow address their respective situations.

The Manciple returns to favor by softening the attack on the Cook with humor and wine, simultaneously soothing the injury to the Cook and the irritation of the Host. Phebus's crow is far less artful. "The crow's fate exemplifies that of the messenger. .. who expresses without hesitation or equivocation unwelcome news or counsel" (Storm 119). If, as established previously, the Manciple's treatment of the Cook, the Host, and Phebus is an illustration of Chaucer's own situation in English society, then it becomes clear that the lesson Chaucer teaches is to be aware of one's audience and artful in one's criticism.

As the validity of the "Tale's" moral is outweighed in practice by the Manciple's actions, how much weight should the listener or reader give "The Manciple's Tale?" The conventional wisdom of Chaucer's England would suggest that moral of "The Manciple's Tale" should be given more weight than the actions of the Manciple in the prologue because the tale's ÂŤ171Âť

noble characters and respected history are greater than the Manciple's lack of education and relatively low position in the social hierarchy. This notion is ill-conceived, given the manner in which Chaucer has Phebus repair the harm done to his noble image. Michael Kensak highlights, "having silenced all witnesses to his humiliation, a delusional Phebus restores his own reputation" (149). While violent revenge was not uncommon, or even illegal in medieval Europe (Herman 320), it was also not considered noble. This undercutting of a traditionally respectable figure detracts from the value of the "Tale's" moral, and tipping the scales in favor of "The Manciple's Prologue."

Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer sets up conventional wisdom in the tales using recognizable, traditional characters, as in "The Knight's Tale," "The Manciple's Tale," and "The Clerk's Tale," or utilizing courtly settings and characters, as in "The Merchant's Tale." In "The Manciple's Tale," Chaucer even includes the detail that the story was told to the teller by his mother, adding to the notion that this wisdom has been passed down through the ages. However, this wisdom is typically undermined by either a responsive tale, the breaking of traditional social roles, or by the tellers themselves. In "The Manciple's Tale," "the 'song' of 'my dame' about silence is probably best understood... as an indirect comment by a dramatic voice in the poem" (Pel en 345). In the Miller's "noble" tale, given in response to "The Knight's Tale" of nobility, the characters are distinctly lower class. The most powerful character, John, is cuckolded and then embarrassed in front of his neighbors, Alisoun's beauty is the opposite of convention, and the only character with courtly inclinations, Absolon, is mocked as foppish. In "The Merchant's Tale," May escapes the usual negative consequences of cheating on her husband, and is actually credited by January for helping restore his sight. The Clerk questions the cruel actions of his king Walter, and even says that the actions of the character are not a model for listeners. The repeated challenges of authority and convention by these and other pilgrims suggest that Chaucer is indeed vocal about criticizing the English government, but artful in his manner.

Taken on its own, "The Manciple's Tale" has a clear message about keeping quiet for fear of consequences, a lesson particularly relevant to those criticizing authority in medieval Europe. The tale's lesson is reinforced by the use of familiar immortals and the tale's history of being passed down from previous generations. In conjunction with its prologue, however, the validity of tale's lesson is undermined by the actions of the world; the story's teller refuses to follow his tale's advice and, despite knowing the moral, indulges in a humorous rant at the expense of another. For his actions, the Manciple is warned of the consequences by an authority figure, Harry Bailey. The Manciple not only avoids retribution for his criticism, but goes ÂŤ172Âť

so far as to demonstrate a means whereby he is thanked by the party he offended and rewarded with the next tale by the Host. In the feudal system, criticism of nobility could be seen as a challenge to the authority of those in power. By hiding his messages behind traditional tales told by fictional characters, including a fictionalized version of a neutral author, Chaucer maintained his life, liberty, and his position working in government. As Michaela Paasche Grudin similarly concludes, "If Chaucer's 'Manciple's Tale' exemplifies the guile it prescribes, it does so because there are conditions under which ... it would be foolish not to" (339). Much like the Manciple, Chaucer's brilliance is not in holding his tongue, but in finding a way to express his thoughts, outwit convention, and reap rewards for his labors.

Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales: Complete. Ed. Larry Benson.

Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.

Grudin, Michaela Paasche. "Chaucer's 'Manciple's Tale' and the Poetics of Guile." The Chaucer Review 25.4 (Spring 1991): 329-342. Print.

Herman, Peter C. "Treason in the 'Manciple's Tale.'" The Chaucer Review

25.4 (Spring 1991): 318-328. Print.

Kensak, Michael. "Apollo exterrninans: The God of Poetry in Chaucer's 'Manciple's Tale. '" Studies in Philology 98.2 (Spring 2001): 143-157.

Print.

Pelen, Marc M. "The Manciple's 'Cosyn' to the 'Dede.'" The Chaucer Review

25.4 (Spring 1991): 343-354. Print.

Storm, Mel. "Speech, Circumspection, and Orthodontics in the 'Manciple's

Prologue' and 'Tale' and the Wife of Bath's Portrait." Studies in Philology 96.2 (Spring 1999): 109-126.

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Fall Leaves John Furphy

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Notes on Contributors

Janice Alonso resides in Alpharetta, Georgia. Her mysteries have appeared in Dying in a Winter Wonderland, a 2008 Top Ten Bestseller in the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, as well as in Crime and Suspense, The Storyteller, and Words of Wisdom. Her first short story, Hank - Super Genius, won an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest’s 2001 writing competition and was published in Palo Alto Review and Janice’s first inspirational piece, And the Answer Is ... , was published in Standard and was included in Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul 2. Her story Just Right for Now won an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest’s 2007 writing competition in Children’s Fiction and her story The Final Chapter was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s January 2008 Family Matters Contest.

Her mystery “Beach Week Reunion” received the Reader’s Choice Award in the May/June 2008 issue of Crime and Suspense. Janice’s work has also appeared in Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover’s Soul, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christian Kids, Catholic Digest, Grit, Anthology, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Skipping Stones, Sparkle, and Ancient Paths Literary Magazine.

Sandy Anderson, of Salt Lake City, Utah, has been published in many magazines, including Weber Studies, Sugarhouse Review, Lucid Moon, and Limberlost Review. In 1978, Ghost Planet Press published her book At the Edge in White Robes. She has also published the Chapbook Jeanne Was Once a Player of Pianos, with Limberlost Press. Her poetry was recently published in the anthology New Poets of the American West, edited by Lowell Jaeger.

Sandy’s awards include the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Award in Literature in 1997, and the Writers at Work Writing Advocate Award in 1995.

Currently, she works as a piano teacher and has enjoyed volunteer positions as judging chair for the Piano Federation Festival and Utah Chairman for Music Achievement Program. Sandy has been involved in the literary community since the 1960s, and is the founder of City Art, the longestrunning reading series in Utah. She was the editor of the award-winning literary magazine Wasatch Front, which won first place in the literary magazine category at the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Press Association.

Sandy has been an artist in residence at several local high schools and have given workshops to many different groups, including Veterans and the disabled.

Carolyn Light Bell resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has read work locally and regionally on radio and television. She has also organized «175»

poetry readings in several high schools and edited literary magazines for young adults and adults. Carolyn’s work has appeared in Big Muddy, Blue Buildings, Croton Review, Great Midwestern Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Limestone, Louisiana Literature, Milkweed Quarterly, Minnesota Memories, Minnesota Women’s Press, Northern Plains Quarterly, The Paterson Literary Review, Phoebe, Reform Judaism, Response, RiverSedge, Tales Of The Unanticipated, and West Wind Review.

S. Paul Bowen, a resident of Long Beach, California, has had stories published in Children, Churches and Daddies and RipRap. Justin Boyer lives in North Wales, Pennsylvania and is a senior English major at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Dianne M. Buxton was a recipient of the Canada Council Grant for dance/ teaching study at The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in NYC. A graduate of The National Ballet School in Toronto, she co-created the writing/editing team of the school’s newspaper. She spent the next 20 years focused on dance: teaching, choreography, theater production, and acting.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Dianne volunteered to teach drama and dance at a middle school. She currently coauthors a catalog of film scripts, teleplays, and children’s stories. She writes daily (over 400 syndicated articles), primarily to support quality dance education on the Web, but also writes in other areas including health, marketing, and creative writing.

Vicki Clark is a junior psychology major at Gwynedd-Mercy College and resides in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.

Katherine Coughlin is a senior in the criminal justice program at GwyneddMercy College and lives in Croydon, Pennsylvania.

Robert Davis resides in Delray Beach, Florida.

Megan DeLany lives in Glenside, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Gwynedd-Mercy College in 2012 with a BA in English and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the College.

Stephanie R. deLusé lives in Tempe, Arizona. In addition to writing, she spends time teaching in her role as Principal Lecturer and Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. As a social psychologist, she writes and teaches on matters that are close to «176»

the heart of our everyday lives and explores how to navigate the tensions between influences that exist in and around us.

Stephanie has work in, or soon to be released in, literary journals such as The MacGufjin, Emrys, and Emeritus Voices. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and an editor submitted her work to be considered for inclusion in well-regarded “Best of ” anthologies. Her book, Arizona State University, is forthcoming (Arcadia, 2012). She has had artiicles published in academic journals including Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Issues in Integrative Studies, and Family Processes. Stephanie also has essays appearing or forthcoming in books such as: The Psychology of Survivor, The Psychology of Joss Whedon, and The Psychology of Superheroes.

Susan G. Duncan resides in Oakland, California and has an MBA in arts management from the University of California, Los Angeles. Having made her living in performing arts administration and arts philanthropy for many years, she presently is an independent consultant with a performing and visual arts clientele. She has served as executive director for San Francisco’s long-running musical comedy phenomenon Beach Blanket Babylon, the al fresco California Shakespeare Theater, and the Grammy-winning, all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer. Susan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Compass Rose, Iodine Poetry Journal, The MacGuffin, OmniArts, Poem, Thema, and The Yalobusha Review.

Elizabeth Elfring resides in Yacolt, Washington. Her work has received several first place awards in local poetry contests from organizations such as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Grange. She is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and teaches poetry with the Cedar Creek Writers. In addition to owning and operating a Christmas tree farm with her family, Elizabeth is the Home and Community Educators superintendent for the Clark County fair.

Cathryn Ferrari lives in Vineland, New Jersey and is a freshman human services major at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

John Furphy resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Joan Gelfand lives in San Francisco, California. She has had published two full-length poetry publications, A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities and Streams, in 2009 by San Francisco Bay Press and Seeking Center, published by Two Bridges Press. Here & Abroad, a chapbook of short fiction, won the 2010 Cervena Barva Fiction Prize, and was published in November 2010.

Transported, a CD of spoken word and original music was published by «177»

Daveland Productions in 2009. Joan’s essays, letters, poetry, short stories and reviews have appeared in more than 100 literary journals, national magazines and webzines, including: California State Poetry Society Quarterly, The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, Poets & Writers, Rattle, The MacGuffin, Kalliope, Eclipse, The Chaffin Journal, poetryrnagazine.com, DuPage Valley Review, and The Toronto Quarterly Review. Select anthologies include The Continent of Light, The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, You Are Here: Poetry From the Streets of New York, If Women Ruled the World, The Light in Ordinary Things, and Bridging New York.

Hayley Gibson, a resident of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, is a sophomore in the Cardiovascular Technology program at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Tom Graham resides in Greenfield, Indiana.

John Grey, a resident of Johnston, Rhode Island, was been published in the Talking River, South Carolina Review and Karamu with work upcoming in Prism International, Poem and the Evansville Review.

Alexandria Gurko, from Broomall, Pennsylvania, graduated in 2012 with her BSN from Gwynedd-Mercy College. She is currently pursuing her MSN at the College.

Plynn Gutman lives in Mesa, Arizona. She is a writing coach, workshop facilitator, freelance editor, and author. In October 2010, Poplar Press, a division of Wolsak and Wynn, released her memoir The Work of Her Hands: A Prairie Woman’s Life in Remembrances and Recipes. In 2006, she was selected as a nonfiction finalist for New Letters Literary Awards for Writers and her work has been published in Sojourn: A Journal of the Arts, 2008 Arizona Parents’ Resource Guide, and elsewhere.

Plynn holds an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree in creative writing and religious studies from Arizona State University and an MFA in creative nonfiction, with a sub-study in poetry, from Lesley University. In 2005, together with ASU professor Elizabeth McNeal, she initiated a book drive for Arizona correctional facilities, which to date has collected and placed over 20,000 books in prison libraries.

In addition to being a multiple-award recipient for her creative writing, Plynn served as the Director of the Young Adult Writing Project, a summer program for eighth through twelfth grade students from 2004 through «178»

2009. As a community volunteer, she facilitates writing workshops for seniors. Plynn is an avid traveler with a passion for experiencing different cultures and she currently teaches classes and facilitates writing retreats in the US and Canada, as well as Dubai, UAE. Erika Harris graduated in 2012 with her BS in business administration from Gwynedd-Mercy College. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Harrison lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania and graduated in 2012 with a BA in Communication from Gwynedd-Mercy College. While a student she was the Editor-In-Chief of the College’s newspaper The Gwynmercian, an Orientation Leader, secretary for Student Activities Committee, member of Sigma Phi Sigma, a Student Leader for “Let Your Light Shine” Retreat, and was selected to participate in the Dublin Pilgrimage for Young Mercy Leaders.

Stephanie Hubbard, a resident of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is a senior nursing student at Gwynedd-Mercy College. After completing her BSN, she plans on continuing her studies at the University of Pennsylvania for a Master’s in midwifery. In her spare time, Stephanie loves to cook and escape to the beach (winter or summer).

Jake Jasinski lives in North Wales, Pennsylvania. Having always been interested in medicine, Jake is a sophomore nursing student pursuing his BSN at Gwynedd Mercy College. He would love to continue his education beyond a bachelor’s degree and pursue a career in the medical field. Jake’s other interests include reading, playing the guitar and saxophone, boxing and the outdoors.

Amy Kolb, from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, graduated in 2012 with her BSN from Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Vivian Lawry lives in Ashland, Virginia.

Lisa L. Leibow resides in Vienna, Virginia. Her debut novel, Double Out and Back, was published by Red Rose Publishing in 2009. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Pisgah Review, and Sanskrit. Prior to pursuing her dream of writing, Lisa practiced law for 11 years, drafting legal briefs and memoranda. She has participated in exclusive writers’ workshops and retreats, including studying with Julia Glass at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and with Michael Neff of Algonkian Workshops. Lisa has won an honorable mention in the «179»

John Gardner Award for Best Character Description.

Paul Loafman lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in education at the Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Catherine McGuire has been widely published. She has had more than 170 poems over the past two decades published in includingpacifzc REVIEW, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Smoking Poet, Poetry In Motion, Folio and Main Street Rag. She has published a chapbook, Joy Into Stillness: Seasons of Lake Quinault, and lives in Sweet Home, Oregon with her garden and chickens.

Rick McKenzie is fascinated with the sound of spoken poetry. He has given readings at various venues in Canada, Michigan, and Florida, including universities, museums, libraries, art galleries, and radio stations. In print, his poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in Pearl, Hiram Poetry Review, The Sun Sentinel, Front Range Review, The Fifth Estate, Minnetonka Review, Wisconsin Review, and the anthology Hipology, from Broadside Press. Born in Chicago, Rick lived in Florida as a boy in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s and considers himself a Florida native. He returned home to South Florida several years ago and currently resides in Pompano Beach with his wife Barbara.

J. Richard McLaughlin resides in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is a writer, semi-professional musician, amateur trapeze artist, and jack-of-alltrades. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Santa Clara Review, Prism Review, and The Chaffey Review, among others.

Jeb Myers was born in Philadelphia in 1952. He studied poetry at Tufts University and served as editor for Tufts Literary Magazine. He has pursued a career in psychiatry, but has remained deeply involved in the work of poetry. In 1982, Jeb moved to Seattle, Washington where he lives today with his wife and three children.

Jeb’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alembic, Atlanta Review, descant, The Distillery, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eclectica, Eclipse, Floating Bridge Review, Fugue, JAMA (five consecutive issues featuring his work during Spring 2011), Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Minnetonka Review, Nimrod International Journal, Poem, Prairie Schooner, Quiddity, Spoon River Poetry Review, Stickman Review and others. Several of his poems have appeared in the new anthology of Northwest poetry, Many Trails to the Summit (Rose Alley Press). Jeb has been a guest editor for Chrysanthemum and served editorially for Drash.

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Alan Meyrowitz lives in Haymarket, Virginia. An artificial intelligence and robotics researcher, he received his Doctorate in Computer Science from the George Washington University in 1980. He retired from the federal government in 2005 after a long and varied career serving as Director of the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence, working as a computer scientist for the Office of Naval Research, and managing the funding of research projects at university and industry laboratories. Alan’s professional work in artificial intelligence and robotics has been widely published in industry and scientific research publications. A longtime bibliophile, his love of the written word also includes collecting and selling rare books. His poetry is forthcoming in California Quarterly.

Joseph Mignone is a senior psychology major at Gwynedd-Mercy College and resides in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Dan Miller, of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is a junior English/Secondary Education major ay Gwynedd-Mercy College. In addition to his classes, he is also an officer and member of the Voices of Gwynedd. He enjoys music and plays guitar and piano. His favorite type of music is Classic Rock, but enjoys almost any type of music, ranging from Alternative Punk, some Rap, and Pop music, part of the inspiration for this poem. Dan also loves to read and watch TV and movies.

Henry G. Miller, a resident of White Plains, New York, has had short stories accepted for publication in literary magazines such as The Chrysalis Reader, Karamu, The Owen Wister Review, RiverSedge, Westview, The Writers Post Journal, Eureka Literary Magazine, and The Distillery. He has also written for Off-Broadway productions. Henry’s play, Lawyers, was performed at the Emelin Theater and Westport Country Playhouse and his play, Alger - A Story, had a reading in New York with Fritz Weaver and Kevin Conway.

James M. Moose, a resident of Sacramento, California is a Navy veteran of World War II, and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and of its law school (Boalt Hall). His working career was as an attorney and administrative law judge in the service of the State of California. Aside from reading and writing legal opinions and decisions, his chief literary interest prior to retirement was reading history, and he is an enthusiastic student of the Civil War and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. James began writing poetry about fifteen years ago, following his retirement.

Alysha Munsey is a senior in the criminal justice program at GwyneddMercy College and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Debra Nicholson graduated from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in Fiction (2008), and an MA in Literature (2010). One of her short stories, Eve, was published in The Episcopalian: Thoughts in Short Prose and Verse. Debra lives in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Stanley M. Noah resides in Dallas, Texas. He has a BGS degree from The University of Texas at Dallas. Stanley has been published in Wisconsin Review, Nexus, Cottonwood, South Carolina Review, Poetry Nottingham and other publications in the United States, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. He was the winner of The Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest, humorous category, in 2006 and Poet of the Month in September 2009.

Katherine Pierzga is a senior math major at Gwynedd-Mercy College and resides in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania.

Michael Prykowski lives in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Gwynedd-Mercy College in 2011 with a BA in History and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the College.

Robert Rothman lives in San Francisco, California. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, undergraduate and graduate school (J. D.). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diverse Voices Quarterly and the Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.

Kelly Ruegner, a resident of Warminster, Pennsylvania, is a sophomore in the nursing program at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Ashley L. Scheiber, a resident of Warrington, Pennsylvania, graduated from Gwynedd-Mercy College in 2012 with a BA in English. While a student at the College, Ashley was president of the English Students Association, editor of The Griffin Literary Journal, a Scholar in Service to Pennsylvania, and secretary of Sigma Phi Sigma the Mercy National Honor Society.

Lucy Saeger, a resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a Master of Social Work, both from the University of Oklahoma. Now retired from a career as a therapist at Tulsa Psychiatric Center, she is a songwriter and also sings in two choruses. She makes attempts to play the guitar as accompaniment to her song writing and enjoys working with stained glass as a hobby.

Lucy has attended an Oklahoma Writers’ conference as well as numerous writing classes and currently participates in an ongoing writers group whose members are affiliated with a memoir writing class at Tulsa Community College.

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Hannah Selinger resides in Astoria, New York and holds a BA in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, as well as a MFA from Emerson College in creative writing, where she was awarded the Presidential Merit Fellowship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in South Dakota Review, Eclipse, Zone 3, Pennsylvania English, RiverSedge, Cadillac Cicatrix, The Avant Garde, Bullfight, Stork, and South Carolina Review.

Laurie Sewall has a MFA in poetry from New England College and a MA in counseling psychology from Lesley University. After spending many years in New England, she now writes and teaches poetry in Fairfield, Iowa.

Laurie’s poetry is influenced by her exploration of the natural landscape and meditation practice. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pinch and in the anthology This Enduring Gift. She has attended many workshops and conferences and has had the pleasure of studying with Jorie Graham, Jane Mead, and James Galvin, among others.

Hope Slaughter, a resident of Santa Barbara, California, grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, earned her BA in English literature from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1962 and moved to California right after graduation. There she earned her teaching certification and taught third grade for several years, then embarked on a long career as a children’s book author, publishing six books for children and numerous stories in children’s magazines. Within the past few years, Hope’s focus has shifted from children’s books to poetry, since she has become involved in poetry workshops, readings, conferences, and critique groups. Her work has appeared in Cairn, California Quarterly (CQ), Old Red Kimono, Calyx, and The Pepper Lane Review.

Katharine Starrantino lives in Warminster, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Gwynedd-Mercy College in 2012 with a BS in psychology.

Camille Stranger was born on a wheat farm in Idaho and raised in Louisiana. A producer and director of an award-winning documentary, she is also a licensed homeopath, alternative medicine woman and a Master Gardener. She teaches meditation and works with incarcerated youth. Her work has appeared in Bayou. A longtime Los Angeles resident and mother of two, Camille lives with her husband in the Hollywood Hills.

Barbara Tramonte resides in Amherst, Massachusetts. She currently is an English language arts professor at Empire State College, where she teaches in the Master of Arts Teaching Program. She also teaches in the Clemente Course in the Humanities, sponsored by Bard College. Barbara was a poet«183»

in-the-schools in New York City for ten years, and has owned a children’s bookstore in Brooklyn Heights.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Buzzard Review, The Chaffin Journal, Confluence, ellipsis..., Home Planet News, Illya’s Honey, New Letters, The Old Red Kimono, Pearl, Phantasmagoria, The Pinch, RiverSedge, Sanskrit, Slipstream, Spillway, and other literary and academic journals.

Chuck Tripi lives in Sparta, New Jersey. A long time airline pilot, he retired to a life of study and poetry in 1998. He founded The Paulinskill Poetry Project, a boutique press and resource dedicated to the poets and poetry of the Upper Delaware River Region. Chuck’s work has appeared in California Quarterly, Confrontation, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, and Poet Lore, among other journals and anthologies. His poems have been regularly featured on Poetry Slowdown, a weekly radio program on KRXA 540, Carmel Valley, California, hosted by Dr. Barbara Mossberg.

Joanne Weck, resides in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines in print and online, including The North At/antic Review, RiverSedge, Literary Magic, Co/ere, and FirstWriter Magazine. Her articles, stories, and plays have been published in Scholastic Magazines Sprint and Action. A recent short story, Flight of the Fairies, won first place in a Fantasy Gazetteer contest, and another story, Hitchhiker, won first prize in the Literary Magic contest. Joanne’s essays have won various online contests as well. Her mystery novel Crimson Ice is published by DPP Press under the pen name A.J. Alise.

Joanne’s plays have been featured on many New Jersey stages, including Playwrights’ Theater in Madison and John Harms Theater (PAC) in Englewood. A Geraldine R. Dodge fellowship gave her the opportunity to hone her craft in workshops with theater notables such as Anne Bogart, Scott Zigler, Anna Strasberg, and Olympia Dukakis. Joanne’s play, Waif, was selected for the Hackensack Theater Playwrights Festival.

She has a BA in English and an MA in theater and has conducted many play writing and other creative writing classes. Her career as a teacher and writer was recently profiled in the NEA online magazine, This Active Life Tim Williams resides in Columbia, Maryland. After receiving his BA in English, he joined the Peace Corps and worked in Ethiopia for four years, three as a teacher and the last as a Smallpox Eradication Officer. He then went on to receive a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins «184»

University. A recent finalist for the Writer’s Digest Poetry Award, Tim’s creative writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alembic, Breadcrumb Scabs, Diverse Voices Quarterly, joyful!, and SP Quill.

Caitlin Weniger is a junior psychology major at Gwynedd-Mercy College and resides in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

Connie Wrzesniewski resides in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and is a freelance writer. She writes for the Bucks County Herald newspaper in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and, In Your Prime an over 55 publication. She has two children and two grandchildren. As a returning adult student, she graduated from Gwynedd-Mercy College in 2002 Magna Cum Laude with a BA in English. She was on the Dean’s List, as well as, a member of the Literary Honor Society and was Editor of the Gwynmercian. Also, as a member of the choir, she sang in London, England.

Fred Yannantuono resides in Bronxville, New York. Fired from Hallmark for writing meaningful greeting-card verse, he once ran twenty straight balls at pool. His work was nominated for Pushcart prize in 2006. His book, A Boilermaker For The Lady (www.nyqbooks.orglfredyannantuono) has been banned in France, Latvia, and the Orkney Isles. Fred will be featured poet at Light Quarterly later this year. His next book To Idi Amin I’m A Idiot-And Other Palindromes is due out later this year.

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