Living Waters Review: 2021 by pba.edu

by the Students and Alumni of Palm Beach Atlantic University

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

John 7:37-38

THANK YOU

Contents

School of Arts and Sciences • English Department • Art Department • Office of Advancement

2 SPECIAL THANKS President Debra Schwinn • Dr. Randy Richards • Dr. Robert Lloyd • Dr. Susan Jones • Dr. Jenifer Elmore • Hannah Gonsman • Taylor Smythe • Barbara Sharpe • Susan Williams

FOUNDER AND FACULTY ADVISOR Professor David Athey

GRAPHIC DESIGN ADVISOR Professor Tim Eichner

SENIOR EDITOR Brynn Richer

MANAGING EDITOR Bryce Langston

ASSISTANT EDITORS Jessie Kieffer Neysa Rogers Cailan Owens

COVER ART Nathan Nettles

Help support Living Waters. Contact Professor David Athey in the English Department. 561-803-2259

Living Waters Review

Table of Contents

The Romp of Letters

I Never Wanted to Be a Bird

Adriana Bockman-Pedersen

Brooke Stanish

Lexie

Scales of Lineage

Juliana Aughey

Alexandra Albert

Moments Passed

Old Set of Keys

Flooding

Charged

Three Haiku

Floral Study

Split Rock

Samantha Wilber

Sydney Mantay

Taylor Gaede

Zach Rohrbough

Neysa Rogers

Nathan Nettles

Grace Cram

Spring 2021

The Saman Tree

Ensue

Welcome to 2020

Waiting & Other Things I’ll Never Learn

Juan Mojica

Taylor Gaede

Lucy Bacon

Brooke Stanish

Contents 3

Enlightened

Running Away at Seven Years Old

A Postmodern Rock Song

Green Market

Colors of Life

Three Haiku

My Name

Sara Nolan

Neysa Rogers

Richard De La Rosa

Jill LaPine

Jessie Kieffer

Emily Hilligoss

Cassidy Stauffer

Contents 4

Paper Mentor

Memory: A Primer for the Confused

A Theology of Names

French Simplicity

Ruth

Confined

Rapiano

Epistemic Connections

Faces

The Square

Geometry

Gwendolyn Dressler

Eden Prime

Brooke Stanish

Sarah Schwalm

Tori Warkentin

Sara Nolan

Ali Rose

Brynn Richer

Bethany Conover

Evan Sullivan

Alyssa Sullivan

I Knew Sandpaper

Grandma Sevigne

Portrait Study #1

Kiss of Divinity

Three Haiku

Embrace of the Ocean

Funnel

The Concept of Circles

Liturgical

The Call of Jeremiah

To Defeat Babel

Danielle Newport

Sydney Mantay

Lucy Bacon

Shelby Fletcher

Cailan Owens

Gwendolyn Dressler

Brooke Pearson

Taylor Gaede

Bryce Langston

Paige Goodin

Scott Cotto

Living Waters Review

Little Town of Wonder

Over Pews and Airplanes

Marbled Clay Collection

Fine China

Hiking with Friends

A Borrowed Coat of Armor

Mudfish and Cows

Three Haiku

Mount St. Helens

Clara from Eureka, Ca.

Renaissance

Tori Warkentin

Sydney Mantay

Nathan Nettles

Zach Rohrbough

Jonas Essington

Samantha Wilber

Lisa Guagliano

Tori Warkentin

Megan Hurst

Jonathan Olar

Cana Scott

Spring 2021

Stargazing

Carving on the Wall

Reflections

Michelangelo Stared

A Medieval Church in the Czech Countryside

Rewriting Grace

Infinity

An Aleatoric Canticle

Funeral Reunion

Grati-dudes

Psalm 72:7

Bethany Conover

Erin Edwards

Sarah Schwalm

Brynn Richer

Lisa Guagliano

Brooke Stanish

Nathan Nettles

Bryce Langston

Christion Garner

Cailan Owens

Lucy Bacon

Contents 5

Contents 6

Organ Garden

Rainbow Hues

Clutter

Oxford in Lockdown

The First House on the Left

Renovations 2021

From a Ship

Wedding Receptions

Midnight

Ammachi’s House

Gwendolyn Dressler

Sarah Schwalm

Portrait Study #3

My Brother Had Fire in His Skin

Lucy Bacon

Scott Cotto

Grace Cram

Lauren Johnson

Sydney Mantay

Jonathan Olar

Samantha Wilber

Shelby Parks

Richard De La Rosa

Isabel Isaac

Living Waters Review

This issue of Living Waters Review is dedicated to the memory of

Sam Perry—artist, teacher, friend.

Spring 2021

The Romp of Letters Adriana Bockman-Pedersen

Pages beckon to listen closely, calling glassy eyes to be lost in a wood. Fresh leather tells of power mostly,

Poetry 8

she held the door open for all she could. Were there music surrounding, therapeutic harp-strings would be resounding, hand-carved flutes would whistle, great fires would burn until the dawn brought dew. Words turn to fog and the grass becomes brittle, the embers sputtered until the flames withdrew. They did not compose songs, no feigned reminiscence. Just silence held strong as if clinging to consciousness.

Living Waters Review

I Never Wanted to Be a Bird Brooke Stanish

never wanted to be a bird until I saw you gaze at one suspended from behind your worn binoculars. I never wanted to be a bird until you brought me to your apartment that one day, ornithology textbooks strewn across coffee tables and the small square of the kitchen counter. The darkness of this small space was lit by the nearly technicolor images of birds freckling the top of your Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America. I’d like to think I’ve been the only one to watch the way your stacks of textbooks curved around the few family photos you own, but that isn’t true. When your books spill open, the birds see you too, and they might know you better than I ever could. We cradled bird-spotted mugs of black coffee one night; you didn’t own any cream or sugar, or any form of food that couldn’t be bought in a can. We freed the cracked leather couch from its blanket of bird books. I flung some as you placed the others down as mothers do with already sleeping children. You were afraid the birds would wake up, I suppose, and maybe you were afraid they’d find me with you. I never wanted to be a bird until that night when I listened to your serious voice recite that poem by Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” My hand lay like an outstretched wing, but you didn’t see it until the last line from which you blinked up as if you were looking through binoculars. You drew back from the haze that held your eyes to the single window in your apartment, completely bare, no curtains, no blinds. Binocular eyes grasped down toward my hand, and you took it, as quietly as you moved your books.

Spring 2021

I tried not to notice you glance toward one of them, draining your gravelly coffee and placing it down onto a coaster, covering the eyes of a woodpecker staring out. You knew I loved poetry, so you read to me. I was the poet, and you were the ornithologist. A poem has never seized my throat the way it has yours, though. I was the poet, but I never spoke a blackbird into flight amidst a dim, crumbling little one-room apartment covered in ring-stained coffee cups and leaves you picked up because you thought they were beautiful. Your entire life seemed to me a poem picked up off the ground, dusted off, and placed on a coffee table, like a thimble or a stone. Without leaving your hand, I twisted to look at your face. “What’s the real name for a cardinal—the scientific one, I mean?” You raised your eyes and smirked, “Cardinalis cardinalis.” “Oh, that’s it?” I accidentally stole my hand from yours. You looked down, eyes widened. I laughed, slipping my lead-stained fingers back around your coarse ones. “Also, can I ask you something?” You swung yourself closer to face me, “Go ahead.” “Do you have any idea what that poem you read means?” Out from beneath your lifting lips, flew your answer, “Not a clue.” A pair of your faded binoculars fell from where they laid on the back of the couch above us, they wedged themselves between us. You placed them on the table, and then you looked at me through eyes like birds and poetry. You looked at me, but not like one of your birds. I never really cared to be a bird.

Flash Fiction 9

Lexie Juliana Aughey

Photography 10

Living Waters Review

Scales of Lineage Alexandra Albert

Do—

So—

Grandma alludes to first key

her lips press against my forehead

Softly and slowly.

“No more trembling hands…”

Re—

La, La, La—

her soft, ageless hands caress the tops of mine

noir notes drift off ivory pages

Tiny and youthful.

going through it together

Mi—

Ti—

the notes of the keyboard sound; yet

her and I

Not. quite. right.

voice and piano coincide

Fa—

and

I feel horrible …

Do— Her voice is the best

Fa— Fa— Fa—

Spring 2021

Do— …

Poetry 11

Moments Passed Samantha Wilber

3:34pm on a Tuesday Sitting across from the kid who bites his nails watching the professor sift through her notes thud Coffee rings on the table; I always forget not to spill. The window frames the light slitted through the palm trees.

Poetry 12

The friction of pages turning softer than car engines on Okeechobee Boulevard. Voices of a symphony raised hands scribbles notes a backpack zips up and a pencil drops the door closes I call out your name, but you already have your headphones in.

Living Waters Review

Old Set of Keys Sydney Mantay

still have the key to the house I grew up in. It hangs with my yellow keychain and clanks around as I drive—hours and miles to so many homes, but not mine. I use it to slice through packages and scratch-off tickets when I’m feeling lucky and between middle and pointer fingers in parking lots when I’m alone. Before the house sold, before strangers slept in my old room that overlooked the wisteria vines, I never thought about my key. I lost it and forgot where I put it. The key was a tool and nothing more. But now, it has become a token of a place that was once my refuge. It became the reminder of what I had and now what I don’t. Like a recovering addict and his coins hanging around his neck or sitting in a dish, they speak, “Things were one way and now they are another. It happens day by day.” Sometimes on long drives, straight up 95 to see my parents, I whisper, “Maybe they never changed the lock. If I drive by and don’t see cars…I could just slip my key in and see if it turns…I could sit in my old room for a minute or two…peek through my window and see the wisteria in all its glory…” I tried it one time; I took a sharp turn and held my breath as I drove by. There were some yellow patches in my dad’s grass, an ugly orange hatchback in the driveway, eggplant curtains instead of my mother’s silky champagne drapes. I sat, foot on the brake, trying to make the decision to move on. I lifted my foot so only my toe was resting on the brake, letting the weight of the car and the goodbye pull me away. But I still have the key.

Spring 2021

Flash Fiction 13

Flooding Taylor Gaede

moonlight drapes silkily over green couch cushions and her. she stretches across unspooling threads and popping stuffing bathing in the milky glow of midnight staring at the discoloration of the ceiling in the far right corner which spreads and deepens every evening

Poetry 14

—as if some abandoned section of the house was weeping for lack of tenants— and if she breathed deep she could smell the rot: a festering wound. how long until the roof bows and breaks? too long. then she closes her eyes to the sound of running water flooding her mind.

Living Waters Review

Charged Zach Rohrbough

he waves were bigger on the West Coast. I slipped beneath an oncoming one and crested the next before it crashed. Too lazy to paddle and too inexperienced to find myself in a barrel quite yet, I was content to drift and survive. I spent every day beneath overpasses and between dry grasses where abandoned shopping carts and cars with dead batteries served as villages. A colony of cigarette butts a thousand strong had collected beneath a bridge over railroad tracks. I lived in a hammock behind the skate shop, in an alley where two hundred years ago wild horses abandoned by the Spanish used to roam. On Sundays, I skated to the old church house and sang and held hands with people I recognized but could not name. I worked two jobs when there was enough work to go around. During the week, I rebuilt and pressure tested old fire extinguishers. On Saturdays, I gave surfing lessons to kids. I, too, was a novice surfer who wished to slash through waves between the beach’s dock pylons. It was a terrifying and enchanting thing to watch. With my own eyes, I’d seen surfers fail to break the sea’s thrashing broncos and land flailing against the oysters, little immobile devils clinging to the concrete pylons—the stuff of nightmares. And yet, at Hailey’s Market, I’d traded my soft-top for a beaten six-foot surfboard. Something in me felt ready. Charged. I felt necessary to the movement of the planet. Destiny is such a rare experience for homeless youth. Each afternoon, save Sunday, I practiced skating in the empty ditch five miles south of the strip. There, along the manmade curvature of an empty river, I attempted flight.

Spring 2021

I mimicked the pumping motion of surfing, emulated each gifted Icarus I had witnessed pass close enough to the teethed pillars for a thrill, yet somehow buoyant as they edged the jagged reach of oysters. It was finally my turn in the ocean when I leapt on the board to ride a swift seven-footer. Only one thought consumed me: You have done and seen this. A thousand times. My heartbeat was visible in each of my veins. Water pelted me, deflected like bullets from the first pylon. A swift moment later, I nimbly slid into the barrel; I felt the rain from the wave’s roof and the droplets of sea water from the bottom of the dock. Someone screamed with joy and rage and passion and it sounded like me. One moment, I felt every fiber of my body tight in motion; the next, I stood slack on my board as though I were a new baby, held on my two feet clumsily by a smiling mother. Another broken wave came thundering and tossed me from my board. Some broncos could still throw a rider even after they broke. And as I fell beneath the surface and my board flipped through the air, I didn’t feel a thing. Elation, maybe, even as I was under the hooves, the undercurrent and the spin, the punch in my diaphragm as water filled my lungs. On the beach I rose, choking, holding my board by its leash. I tore it from my ankle and fell to my knees. I clasped my hands together and yanked them into my gut, rolling in the sand. And as I retched up sea water with every rasping breath, I foggily detected the strangest prayer I have ever worded. You have done and seen me do this. A thousand times.

Flash Fiction 15

Three Haiku Neysa Rogers

beetles and leaves shadowcasters for a second

Poetry 16

still pools collecting infinity

clovers disobey pavement

Living Waters Review

Floral Study Nathan Nettles

Watercolor 17

Spring 2021

Split Rock Grace Cram

every autumn, i journey north to the shore to join the leaves’ last rebellion before they are no more— gold, caramel, cardinal— i watch the royal tree crowns fall and tumble and

Poetry 18

crumble like burnt cinnamon to the sea of cider, beneath it all… landing as skeleton souls forever suspended in reverent reflections of a colorful heaven while floating down these analeptic, antiquated waters. these weary waves wearing down the tired cliff face of my being split rock breaking and taking bits of me to death’s door until i am so much more.

Living Waters Review

The Saman Tree Juan Mojica

There once was a buzz around the saman tree with cricket wings and children songs and hymns, with the panting of mongrel dogs and palpitations of forbidden love. The threaded branches extended above like a hug. Over me, a boy chewing pinchos in the rusted swings. Her groaning house stands at the edge of the plains where the earth folds up like morning sheets with exhausted walls from all the merengue dances with scars from shattered beers and burns from all the boiling sancochos and wounded floors from all of my aunts’ high heels. Eva Maria rises in the morning to boil her coffee pot. She’s too old to be drinking coffee. She wakes me up when the arepas are ready–– her glassed body sits heavy forever waiting like a stone but she still sparks like the million dew-drop suns that ooze about her roofless patio in the afternoon and it’s hard to see where the yellow-grassed hills of her cheeks end and to do anything but remain silent to the song of the few crickets that still hide inside her hair she likes to stroll and hum in her sandals and lay her feather hand atop my head and laugh when water drips off her weary lips ––It is so disarming to be fed by her–– She sits at the tip of the table and watches me eat. There once was a buzz around the saman tree, Today, it barely has any vines or leaves.

Spring 2021

Poetry 19

Ensue Taylor Gaede

how many hours are in a year? are these hours consumed by sleep or sleep deprivation as I lie awake for hours wondering, am I an insomniac or only restless?

Poetry 20

restless— restless hours plucking my heart like a flower asking who am I? and who am I not? until the final petal falls in my lap without an answer. just a bare stem in pollen-stained fingers. a stem— a stem needing new leaves, new fruit, because I am not the petals shriveling.

Living Waters Review

Welcome to 2020 Lucy Bacon

Digital Imaging 21

Spring 2021

Waiting & Other Things I’ll Never Learn Brooke Stanish

I tried to grab God’s face & press it close to my own, but it didn’t work— it’s not so much the fall that gets you as it is the always falling eternity of arms outstretched beyond this always never enough, thinking infinity is a word I could write on my hand in ink more temporary than the skin

Poetry 22

peeling off my knuckles from washing them too much—a symptom of impermanence, a lack of temperance—& other words that make us think we know what we are. Trying God is a funny game we like to play with ourselves when we feel our lips bleeding shut & our hands slipping off & all of the world rolling away. As soon as we’re done playing, exhausted by our own voice & this hollow of ever-present lack is when we hear it: the wind of a winking eye, the breathy music of flame, the harp, the rain, a laugh.

Living Waters Review

Enlightened Sara Nolan

need the light. Dad claims that I am neither a desert cactus nor a cold-blooded reptile, and yet I bask. Bask in the gleaming heat, delivering luscious sweat for the tired grass beneath my soles. The twisting curls on my scalp cradle my temples until spheres appear. I crave the light. I crave it more than the sweet basil rooted amid the peach-painted pot. My teacher said I had chosen a superb color for the pot. A new home for two lonesome seeds. They made their habitat among the fractured wishbone, upon the upper kitchen window. Over time, the seeds flourished with poise into my budding buddies, straining their necks to grasp a subtle glow from a hovering amber orb. The basil’s swelling aroma coats each morning breath, licking my memory of floured dough and spiced tomato sauce. Oh, how lucky that basil plant is to flourish and lounge with the sun. Mom says that if I remain in the presence of the sun too long, it will burn me to a crisp. I don’t mind. I like my toast nice and crisp, tanned with bronzed undertones, with strawberry and blueberry jelly smushed together. My brother says this combination is gross. Well, I don’t like his smelly egg sandwiches. I do like the light, though. I can’t hug the light. But that’s okay. Maybe I’ll find a way.

Spring 2021

Flash Fiction 23

Running Away at Seven Years Old Neysa Rogers

your soles and hands will slip on pink bicycle wheels, tassels, grips. sweat will rain on uncreased skin. appreciate the balance of what was then.

Poetry 24

expect muggy & undrifting air, a hover of no-see-ums that tug on your hair. make sure to leave crumbs and pack clean socks and underwear, chapter books to rest on big rocks, and a bat to fight off crooks. a bike can only take you so far until you remember who you are.

Living Waters Review

A Postmodern Rock Song Richard De La Rosa

here is something I envy about my younger disposition: a posture absent of any future plans. I can see it in the thoughtless swing of my backpack as it is thrown into a bus seat and used as a pillow, derelict and content on the drive back from a field trip. Some feeling that I could be just as comfortable left behind forever, or simply sitting in my living room. I can see it in the forgotten comment made thirty minutes earlier. As if the obstruent words were freed from my mind and the present moment was so fully lived in, that nothing in the past really mattered. A hum arises from the incoherent sentences fighting to be heard. I imagine a place in my mind—a level only open to the ones who can magnify chaos and use it like a shield against the rising voices and dull conversations. I capture the abstract noise in a bundle labeled “chaos.” It holds a monotone consistency and my mind slips under the shield of noise. This is my postmodern rock song made up of youthful abandon. The sun casts a bright light as it runs between the passing trees and the flashes of light are more noticeable in this mundanity. It creates an unnamed philosophy—worn like a halo—that could actualize Narnia or Peter Pan. This same philosophy, with a resilience as bright as the passing sun, made laughing easier and made inattentiveness affordable. There are times when I hear this postmodern rock song. An abstract feeling I try to capture and put into words, but the thoughts of youth are elusive and something about it seems so far away.

Spring 2021

Flash Essay 25

Green Market Jill LaPine

Acrylic 26

Living Waters Review

Colors of Life Jessie Kieffer

n the lowest points of Escuintla, Guatemala, piles of trash create mountains and valleys that rival the volcanoes of the highlands. Just like the volcanoes of Agua and Fuego, these monsters are erupting. Due to the burning properties of methanol, heaps of garbage flame relentlessly, blanketing the mountains of filth in thick smoke. For the workers that operate the dump, the landfill of Escuintla, Guatemala is home. As I walk through the dump, I see only in gray. Smoke, soot, and dust obscure the colors of clothing, the colors of skin, even the colors of wrappers and bottles that form the trash mountains. My breath catches with every inhale of dust and smoke, cooked by 100 degrees of sun. Since garbage makes for poor soil, food and water are scarce. Small children soar down slides made of trash, smiling widely, to grasp a small bag of water being offered at the bottom. They are also offered an invitation to La Tierra de Esperanza, the Land of Hope, a small community close by with a water well, sturdily-built homes, and operating restrooms. After returning from the formidable trash dump, the Land of Hope looks like a heaven on earth. Sixteen cinderblock homes painted in bright colors contrast against the washed-out grays of the smoldering garbage. Children with glistening skin, amber and hazel eyes, and clean, colorful clothing enjoy a playground painted in vibrant red, green, and blue. A group of ladies chop fresh carrots, tomatoes, and chili peppers and serve soup in blue, pink, and yellow plastic bowls. The amphitheater that serves as both community center and church boasts a crisp coat of white

Spring 2021

paint, with the opposing walls covered in gorgeous murals of flowing rivers, flourishing trees, purple mountains, rich sunsets, and scripture. The newest mural reads, “¡Hemos encontrado agua!”, we have found water! The Land of Hope has indeed found physical water, with two active wells that deliver fresh water for drinking, bathing, and cooking. They also have found living water. Kimberly is just like any other seventeen-year-old girl. She hates waking up early, so she is enrolled in the second half of the school day, which starts at two o’clock. She complains about the stifling heat, saying “¡Mucho, mucho, MUCHO calor!” She writes short love poems to her boyfriend about kisses and dreams, and she stresses over homework. When I spent time with her, she was working on a large color map of the community surrounding her school. As we shaded greens, blues, and reds onto white papers taped together, Kimberly told me about her life. Her boyfriend is twenty-eight, and they have been together for three years. About twice a month or so, she makes the four-mile walk into a nearby town to see him. Kimberly lives with her mother and two younger sisters. Her older sister, Stephanie, who is nineteen, left the Land of Hope last year due to a dispute with her mother. She now works in a brothel in Escuintla. The final member of the family is Alex, the eighteen-month-old son of Stephanie. Though the mother recently went into the darkest places of Escuintla to bring him back to the Land of Hope, the baby is largely rejected as a part of the family. Alex’s pants are always a little too big and fall down his legs. His hobbies include going down the red slide at the Land of Hope and playing with sticks in the sand. Though Alex is often seen yelling and grunting angrily, he is a sweet baby, mostly showing his affections to Salome and Brenda, his twelve and nine-year-old aunts, by giving little besitos. Majo is thirteen. She usually wears her thick, dark hair in a loose bun on top of her head, and her round eyes are full of mischief. On most days, she can be seen wearing a shade of red. “Majo” is not her birth name; it is short for “Maria Jose.” I first met Majo on a Wednesday. She was mindlessly twirling her small hand around a metal fence and chatting with Catalina, who is twenty. With black smoke floating above us, we exchanged names and ages. I was introduced to Jack, Catalina’s four-year-old-son, while his dusty fingers clutched tightly to his mother’s seafoam green shirt.

Creative Essay 27

Creative Essay 28

The following day, a few other girls on the team and I were painting the playground at Land of Hope. Even though it had only stood there a year, the red, yellow, and blue had chipped and rusted. Someone was playing worship music in English. Every twenty minutes or so, Majo walked by us, sat under the large tree overlooking the land, and asked me what the song was saying since she didn’t understand the English. The phrases I remember translating for her are “You make us come alive” and “I will look for you in the darkness.” I realized that those phrases might sound strange on their own, so I ended by saying “the singer is speaking to God,” hoping that she wouldn’t think the song was about a stalker. She never commented on the songs; she would only nod her head thoughtfully, then stroll away. Jaquelin is a very sweet girl. She is eleven but looks only eight or nine. When she smiles, her tiny square teeth form a line that slants slightly upward on the left side. She is usually wearing pink, and she enjoys taking pictures, jumping rope, and playing la gorra mágica, a game where one special hat is a “magic hat” that gives magical powers to the wearer. Jaquelin is a flash of color. She is energetic and can run around, jump rope, climb trees, and yell playfully for hours. Jaquelin has a younger sister, Flor, who is seven. Unlike Jaquelin, Flor is very quiet and likes to keep to herself much of the time. The moments that I remember with her consist of us sitting quietly on the ground, making a little volcano out of sand, dried leaves, and a plastic water bottle. “What do you call this?” I asked, lightly tapping the sand. “La arena,” she replied, letting the sand slip between her fingers and onto her faded purple shirt. “La arena,” I repeated. After a minute or so of very focused volcano building, I said, “Sand.” “Sand,” she said softly, not taking her eyes off of her project. We followed this pattern with every ingredient for the little volcano. Jaquelin and Flor’s baby brother, Samuel, is maybe two or three years old. He usually wears a teeny orange shirt. His language skills are still very much in progress; I learned his name and the family he belonged to from his grandfather after we had already been playing for three

days. Though he doesn’t speak, Samuel communicates with his smile of only a few teeth and the creases around his chocolate eyes. He enjoys bouncing up and down, helping the older boys shovel sand, and giving hugs. On Thursday, my team and I went into the nearby dump to share water and to invite people to the Land of Hope. There, I met another girl named Flor, who lives in the dump. She is sixteen. The soft, pretty features of her face were partially hidden under the blanket of gray soot that coats the entire landfill. We invited her to come to the Land of Hope the next day to have her nails painted. On Friday, all the girls at the Land of Hope were crowded around three white folding tables in a plain concrete-walled room. There were blues, pinks, reds, purples, greens; nail polishes in every color of the rainbow. Jaquelin was the first one there, and she had her nails painted bright red. Brenda told me that her teacher did not allow her to have nail polish, so she tried several different colors, scraping the polish off after each time. Ruth, a quiet girl with hearing aids on both ears, painted my nails green with purple stripes. Little Samuel knocked over several bottles of nail polish onto the table, staining the white plastic with pink and blue. David, another boy of eight or nine, painted a girl’s nail with every single color. The color of paints and the color of life flushing in faces flashed everywhere in the room. Flor, our friend whom we met in the trash dump, came to join us. She picked a bold shade of coral blue. Against the faded hues of her clothing and the dust on her skin, the blazing blue flowed through each graceful movement of her strong arms and gentle hands.

Living Waters Review

Three Haiku Emily Hilligoss

watercolors in a pond orange, yellow, and black koi fish

Poetry new flowers

fresh cut grass

old tombstones

monarch butterfly

soaring through the graveyard

spring

Spring 2021

My Name (Inspired by the House on Mango Street) Cassidy Stauffer

Too many letters, a muddy color syllables like tin, sounds like sobbing. A wild horse of a woman’s name: Esperanza. I inherited her name but I will not inherit her place

Poetry

by the window.

Living Waters Review

Paper Mentor Gwendolyn Dressler

Sometimes I cradle its cheeks like a child to a mother because it gave me the will to be stronger. I stroke the pages with my forefinger, and I think of the times we shared when I wanted to be alone forever. I cherish the shape of its V’s and L’s with reverence and admiration. Each line and curve of ink immortalized, etched atop the flayed bark of a birch or oak tree. I feel it sink in my mind during the light and dark times. I have lived in paper and ink for as long as I remember, but now I have to close its face and put it on the shelf, so I can know what it means to live as myself.

Spring 2021

Poetry 31

Memory: A Primer for the Confused Eden Prime

Creative Essay 32

ur long conversation with the stars forces the continuum of time into simplified terms. Time is packed up in phrases and sold as Quantum Physics for Dummies, which now lies on the carpet beside a cup of cinnamon tea that once was rainwater, bark, fungus, and leaves. I embark on a Friday. A new virus beats at the door of humanity’s fragile nerves. Planes rise up and fall down, delivering their cargo with a thud of rubber, heating sleetstrewn tarmacs—we still do not fully understand how. Someone once whispered into my ear the laws that govern my motion, but I was distracted by my pre-birth view of the stars. Babies are born with wisdom, according to some psychologists in California; newborns gaze up blurry-eyed into the face of a caregiver who is older, wizened, yet less wise—they are fresh from a place that looks down on time and up toward memories. Rain guides the eye towards the earth, memories dissipate with the molecules finding their way down through the soil. Drops of rain were once snowflakes, carrying at their center grains of microscopic gifts for the earth below, bacteria, minerals—seeds, genes, life. Genes that thread their way through time, the ever-growing library of evolution, memories. Temporal, scattered, frail—gravity, warmth, and earth perpetuate the hydrologic cycle of the drop. It is shattered and forgotten, drunk and released, worn, cried, mixed, evaporated. Memories broken down to their most base elements. The loose ringlets of time coax me to think spatially, as though things disbanded by time and distance could

ever synchronize. Space denies certainty. People are divorced from places the way memory becomes divorced from time. The I-am-coming, I-am-going vulnerability of a plane journey becomes our human relationship to memory. Thoughts become manifest, dreams become truth, and we search for the elusive visions planted in the hippocampus. Jet bridges smell of dog treats and Mentos, people mumble, conversations between seat-mates grow familial in their brief and public ways. We are all here for a moment—enough for the force of our presence to act on distant objects—long enough to be absorbed by the gravitational pull of memories suppressed, re-addressed, forgotten, and far above.

Living Waters Review

A Theology of Names Brooke Stanish

do you bother yourself with the names of trees, or do you slip your sighs softly from their flailing heads? do you wonder as they pummel toward dirt what they might be called now disconnected from earth? do you bother yourself with the names we give to the things we think we own— (a book under a bed, a rock on a desk, a finger on lips); do you call them by those names too? did you give the saber-toothed sky her name, or did you leave it for us to find, seeping from a cave of alone we thought we’d crawled out from, beneath a pile of sticks we trace your name with? do you pry open our chests with a name we heard in waking to that mother-hum of breakfast sighing scrambled eggs, young enough to eat buttered toast with cinnamon & without worry, old enough to wear your name on our wrists? do the letters of our names mean anything to you, or does your breath curl over us, curving as spacetime, blowing our faces off as candles, erasing the names we’ve tried carving onto peeling, holey walls? are you only a name we give to beauty’s stretching silence, this endless pause before the knowing? perhaps

Spring 2021

Poetry 33

French Simplicity Sarah Schwalm

Acrylic 34

Living Waters Review

Ruth Tori Warkentin

Rice porridge with brown sugar one almond on top, she watches as I take a bite then with a smile pours herself her own. Her hands are strong yet wearing, her veins azure and proud. My eyes stare back at me, a bit more hazy but full of reverence. “My two favorite ladies,” my mom speaks from her chair. Grandma winks at me and taps on my hand “Strong women come in pairs.”

Spring 2021

Poetry 35

Confined Sara Nolan

Crimson wings flicker in tune of the eastern winds; she’s honeysuckled to her brim, each leg is irked with the load of her wings. A beauty she will continue to be, nothing like the dragonflies or honeybees

Poetry 36

vaulted in a pen for a time, her hues were hindered her latent care was shriveled within withheld her joy from all of the deplored swarm glory and goodness attached at the thorax jaunty wit drizzled from her crown of antennas she banters and buzzes jitterbugging across each greenery.

Living Waters Review

Rapiano Ali Rose

When I think about life, I think about piano. She beams at me from the corner of my bedroom this exhumed heirloom that can only play the right tune. No trust in the notes that I create too ornate to translate the pain that I’ve been going through. In time I realize it’s the sound that I will hide behind.

Spring 2021

Poetry 37

Epistemic Connections Brynn Richer

Creative Essay 38

winging, hanging by the comma instead of the period, against the black curtain with a faint squeaking in the rusty hinges. The comma our crescent moon illuminated, the period a distant yet approachable planet. Both forming a historic pause in the sky—a collective intake of breath for a debate I am not privy to. It serves as the top to this whole circus tent, this semicolon; the pole letting a star-filled fabric drape over everything with folds and wrinkles in places never noticed. The velvet tent is always too dark to judge depth. I still search the horizon for places where the fabric flaps up with a gust of breeze from the other side. Which sentence is this semicolon begging me to complete—which apology, which sunset-orange burst of anger, which smirk needs the ends tugged? What order is in motion, oh God, but not yet trumpet sounded? It feels like a night that doesn’t return these questioning acoustic vibrations. This cathedral of gas exchanges, of beautiful gestures, of delicate nothing, grows tense waiting. There are two freckles punctuated and stacked neatly on my skin. They grow cancerous in their colon expectations. What lesson is this, what fragment of divine figment is beneath these layers? They reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, becoming more transparent as they rise to the surface. Unfavorably, they remain blurry until the top. Even then, their graphite message gets smudged in a few hours. I have always waited for the last part of the sentence, but I don’t ever think of what the words could be. I am afraid they will tell me I am a lighthouse whose beam never

lands on anything, and whose watchman is asleep. Before this semicolon, the sky was burnt orange and cobalt. Now everything is drawn curtain black. For the day, the showman of this circus has retired. Tomorrow more lions and elephants will show. I don’t know if I am more nervous for the show to start again or to be left in the emptiness. Nothing but the yellow and white borders on the asphalt are visible after the sunset. It is a relief not to see the tire skids of exclamation, the red-mouthed, fur-stained periods to lives just crossing through. I wish I hadn’t admired the silhouettes on the other side of the road, where the sunset couldn’t stretch, for their ambiguity. The road before me only leads my thoughts to the edge of a dash, waiting to connect.

Living Waters Review

Faces Bethany Conover

“Cover his face,” exhausted whispering, inlaid gold, wood foundation settling over linen. “Off to battle,” the menpo turns cheers sinister, smooth iron over rough leather, ever dripping sweat. “It’s darkened in color,” voice shifts through the herbs, buboes set in color; the birdlike god turns away. “How quaint,” her laughter trickled in wake as feathers flew through the air, Arm in arm unidentifiable monsters twirling, savages and gentry. “Today you will become a man,” he proclaims to his Tuareg son, brown eyes twinkle in the Libyan sun, shaded by turbans tinted indigo. “Ten rial!” “five!” Shouting echoes through the bazaar, straining through the veil of the niqab, like a shadow she stares. “Shoot,” resonates up the stairs, thumping and slamming and grabbing, and twisting elastics behind red ears before hearing judgmental stares.

Spring 2021

Poetry 39

The Square Evan Sullivan

Flash Fiction 40

ow, it sure is hot out today. I can’t wait for summer to be over. I carried my plastic shopping bag, alternating hands after a little while because my hands started cramping up. It had been quite a strange month; students and civilians alike had been protesting against the government. Yesterday, it seemed as if the uprising had been quelled. I pressed on home, swapping my shopping bag between hands. After reaching an intersection, I pushed the button for the crosswalk and patiently waited my turn to cross. Ding! The little pedestrian light lit up and I stepped off the curb, nudging my glasses back up. I could hear the clanking of heavy machinery approaching at a rather fast pace. Turning to face whoever was trying to run the red light, I was greeted by a column of tanks. I stood my ground. It’s my turn, I thought. I won’t be intimidated. And it worked, for the tanks stopped in front of me instead of going around. Despite there being heavily censored media outlets, I found out the next week that some American had taken my photograph, and that the world clapped for me. I nudged my glasses back up.

Living Waters Review

Geometry Alyssa Sullivan

Stained Glass 41

Spring 2021

I Knew Sandpaper Danielle Newport

I knew sandpaper rocky roughness harsh wind I felt sandpaper

Poetry 42

fatigue, in the slums, in the savage in a shipwreck I let sandpaper scratch my smooth skin raw longing for the day, the hour a moment I endured sandpaper and ached for soft downy pillows I withstood sandpaper and yearned for gentleness, a salve a kind and tender kiss I knew sandpaper healing

Living Waters Review

Grandma Sevigne Sydney Mantay

“M

y heart, go get the flour.” Beads of sweat gather at the ends of my baby hairs as I look up at her, confused. She says again, “Flour,” this time with undertones of frustration and pain. She cannot tell if I am stupid or if I cannot understand English. With a final huff and mumbled words she continues to prepare the meat. I know I will not get any further direction until I fulfill her request. Tears run hot in her dark kitchen. Her cataracts cannot handle the harsh light of fluorescent bulbs. Light from the foggy window casts shadows on her high cheekbones and strong nose. Her pursed lips hold the tension; hurt that I cannot understand her words and disappointed that her accent engulfs her identity. I open every cabinet and stick my head through, hoping I will find what she wants or the courage to ask her again. I crawl in and take my time. I sit and wait. I hear the door creak open, pursed lips turned smooth and red. “My heart, come help me.” We don’t speak. She heats the oil in a pan and begins frying the meat. I relax at the sound of melanesia floating in bubbly oil. I lay my head on the cold marble countertop and watch her move around the kitchen, a bit stiff, but strong. I feel the guilt hang low around my shoulders. I’ve heard her cry about what Americans think of her when she speaks, how her words get lost.

Spring 2021

Flash Essay 43

Portrait Study #1 Lucy Bacon

Acrylic 44

Living Waters Review

Kiss of Divinity Shelby Fletcher

In the mirror I see, something I do not know unfamiliar is this face of mine: dark irises kiss the sight before them eyes sink into mattresses of flesh lain beneath soft, weathered skin that’s been drawn on by the sun with a marker of age

Poetry there once was a flesh-toned person I thought was me blush settled over her young, taut skin liner traced her eyelids blankets of mascara coated her lashes to make herself more beautiful even then insecurity greyed her demeanor stiffened her smile silenced her God now, my skin is bare tethered to the wind that blows down but blessed with the kiss of love that resembles beauty Divine

Spring 2021

Three Haiku Cailan Owens

intertwined trees rooted growing

Poetry 46

un arbol

la historia de una vida

tantas hojas

in the moonlight the sun bear knows home

Living Waters Review

Embrace of the Ocean Gwendolyn Dressler

I’m afraid of the ocean because it’s so beautiful. Her arms brim with dazzling fragments of speckled sunlight. Her hue shifts from verdant to vermillion to cerulean to charcoal. From the salmon dawn to the tangerine dusk. The shore clutches human ankles. One step and the tides rip them from the sands and tuck them into the seabed. Oceanic gargoyles perch themselves on driftwood left from hubric ships. The ocean loves humans. See them cradled in the seabed.

Spring 2021

Poetry 47

Funnel Brooke Pearson

Knitting 48

Living Waters Review

The Concept of Circles Taylor Gaede

he tried to hold my face in his hands. tried to comb his fingers through my hair. he has such confidence in his hands; but his eyes speak lingering questions wormed into words: I don’t know you or what you want from me. I can’t stand your stare but I don’t want you to look away. why can’t understanding be as simple as a touch? I could sit with my knees pressed against his watching him while the air conditioner coughs and chokes behind the walls and doors crack and slam and someone laughs, far and loud in some other corner. but he interrupts, asking, what are you thinking? and I don’t say, that we love each other but in circles never intersecting.

Spring 2021

Poetry 49

Liturgical Bryce Langston

Creative Essay 50

tanding in a circle, we closed our eyes and waited for the Trinidadian woman to rub oil on our foreheads. A man stood in the corner of the room, singing a song over the group of twelve missionaries. The pews were empty. Outside the walls of the small church was a highway and the quiet countryside, the crowded lights of Port of Spain beyond it. I opened my eyes to watch every few minutes. The woman—the pastor—stood before a young man and laid her hand on his forehead, speaking rapidly in tongues and prophesies as her husband wandered freely about the room, joining her at times or singing with the man in the corner. Occasionally, he grabbed a tambourine and started hitting it. A young lady from our group fell backwards while the pastor anointed her with oil. Another who had been anointed half an hour earlier appeared frozen, her eyes closed tightly with a grimace on her tearful face. Another young lady sat on the floor with her legs crossed, arms raised, and head bowed. The words of the pastor and her husband came out in passionate shouts, most which I could not understand because of their thick accents, the man playing guitar and singing in the corner, and the speaking in tongues. She came to me, laid her oil-soaked fingers on my forehead, and began prophesying. The members of the church believe their pastor has all nine spiritual gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. In the southern Baptist churches I grew up in, we

rarely talked about these spiritual gifts. Our pastors never spoke in tongues or performed miracles. In Trinidad, I heard stories of dying people who were brought to a pastor and healed. The local believers told us that Americans rely too much on science for healing. Worship there is free and spontaneous; the singers start the songs in whatever key is comfortable and the musicians figure it out by the end of the first verse. When one song finishes, they go into whatever others they know. There are no bulletins to give order to the service, no time limits placed on any part of it. The man who had played guitar while we were anointed was also one of our drivers for the week. He taught me how to play the calypso rhythm used in their music. During one of the rides into town, we talked about worship in our churches. He stressed the importance of letting the Spirit manifest in our worship and not restraining its movement. I thought of the churches I have attended in America, where members might complain if the pastor preached longer than usual or if the chorus of a song was repeated too many times. In the churches we visited in Trinidad, the worship team might sing a chorus twenty times over. I asked the driver if he thought the way we planned worship was wrong. “No, no, no,” he chuckled while dodging a pothole. “Just different.”

Living Waters Review

The Call of Jeremiah Paige Goodin

Golden hands to feeble lips, speak on greater behalf. No longer just a youth, no longer sitting complacent. Stitched and woven, trillions of cells in the womb, designed, millions of hairs reach for glory. “For I am who I am.” Too long goats run wild, too long weeds overrun. It is time for turning or threshing. It is time for bowing and gnashing. Turn them, young weeping prophet, to leading staff, before they walk right off that rocky edge.

Spring 2021

Poetry 51

To Defeat Babel Scott Cotto

How I love words, Convulsing and conditioning me as I finger through wings of dictionaries and the bones of thesauruses. I was taught to love the words that descend and ascend and conspire and respire. But until you:

Poetry 52

Words never twisted under my teeth, or ganged up against my tongue. Vicious as they are, they never loosened; they never harassed; they never fled into deep caverns and mountainous lands harsh as they were; cold as they came; simple as they spoke, when they hail down like a storm, dripping from the edges of my mouth, words filled me with compelling impediment. I wove them like Pallas on the spindle. I fashioned them as boldly as Vulcan. Until you: Twirled and Tangled, Complexed and Compounded, I was an artist…I was the storage keeper of deeper knowledge behind a world that knew nothing more than the idiosyncrasies of a school boy that ran into his house discovering that mud was made from dirt and water. Until you: I knew how to abash kings into giving up their thrones to my feet. Until you: I knew how to aggravate wise men, and to stumble Socratic scholars in their place. Until you: I was a master of the world. Then You humbled me.

Living Waters Review

Little Town of Wonder Tori Warkentin

n the border of Wales and England, I fell in love with a little town called Hay-on-Wye. The historic town is not just beautiful in its architecture and friendly faces, but in its divine insistence to facilitate literature and knowledge to its visitors. Hay-on-Wye is a market town located on the River Wye. In 1960, a man by the name of Richard Booth opened the first book store in the center of the sprawling streets of the town in an old firehouse. Following Booth’s influence, many other bookshops opened, and the town quickly became known for its expanse of literature, cramming thousands of books onto every available surface. While visiting the Welsh town, I quickly learned that no expanse of time would ever be enough to venture the packed hallways of each store. I spent hours outside the castle ruins perusing the open-aired shelves, picking up a well-loved book, and leaving a few pounds in the honesty payment box. I sat on the floor of a murder mystery shop, pulling out faded paperbacks from little nooks and crannies. At a shop filled with poetry, I peered over the words of Wordsworth and Keats. Some of the stores held vintage novels while others were considerably new, but all held treasures. A place with so much of the same thing may be seen as redundant to some, but to other readers and me, it was a place to explore and broaden our worldviews. A place where in one store, you were reading the works of William Shakespeare and in another, venturing into the world of Huckleberry Finn. Although the borders of this small town may look narrow at first glance, Hay-on-Wye took me and many others on a journey of discovery. Like the brilliant author, Jhumpa Lahiri says, “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

Spring 2021

Creative Essay 53

Over Pews and Airplanes Sydney Mantay

Flash Essay 54

n elder standing at the pulpit shuffles his papers and scratches at his beard. He tells a story about something that quickly loses the attention of the crowd. I count how many times his teeth make a quick whistling sound. Four times with words that start with an S...two more times when he huffs between words...and what about that sound? Does that qualify as a— A paper airplane gets caught between my twisted fingers and interrupts my thought. I don’t look around because I know who the pilot of this plane is: my grandfather, the old preacher. The pew shifts as he leans over to see my reaction. My movements are slight, the tail of my right eyebrow rises and my chin drops in a nod. He relaxes at the signal; he kicks out his legs and I see his high-top Vans sway. All over the wings of the plane are notes, sketches, ideas, comments and criticism. My teeth sink into the sore on my cheek and I slip the airplane somewhere between the Psalms.

Living Waters Review

Marbled Clay Collection Nathan Nettles

Ceramics 55

Spring 2021

Fine China Zach Rohrbough

each pot is made of white enamel and painted in stylized sapphire strokes my mom runs her hand across every handle “Mom, I can’t afford them. I’m broke.”

Poetry 56

there’s a fine line between what’s fine and what can be bought and what’s not mine, is hers

Living Waters Review

Hiking with Friends Jonas Essington

Underneath the vaulted sky, we sit, huddled forms packed together, heavy steam pouring forth from our lips as we squint towards Elysium. Surrounded by the husks of wars gone by, the shattered remnants of forgotten ordinance peppering the tranquil scenery of our current escape. Artifacts actualize the passage of time as we find shelter under woolen blankets, next to dying embers. Or maybe this is Elysium.

Spring 2021

Poetry 57

A Borrowed Coat of Armor Samantha Wilber

“It’s raining out.” I put on a rain jacket too big for a small frame left arm, right arm. The black pin on my lapel

Poetry 58

inscribed “United States Marines” only visible if you’re close enough to hear the swish, swish, swish. The last time my grandfather wore this jacket we were standing on the shore. A beach in Sanibel, in the sun. The ocean water against the sand… again, again, again. When you see me walking through the rain know that it has always been on purpose.

Living Waters Review

Mudfish and Cows Lisa Guagliano

the summer time is coming farmers and kids gather in the morning mudfish lay in the clay and peeks won’t you come on and join the crew? fishing in the tidal pool the cows are watching the kids and moo the noon sun comes rolling by we sit under the bodhi tree cleaning the fish elders sit and drink barley tea who brought the clay pot? who will kindle the fire pit? who will tend the cooking fish?

Spring 2021

Poetry 59

Three Haiku Tori Warkentin

a royal fern bowing to the sun rain or shine

Poetry 60

a snowy egret

running through the sprinklers

in the cemetery

waves echo

like whispered psalms

still

Living Waters Review

Mount St. Helens Megan Hurst

Watercolor 61

Spring 2021

Clara from Eureka, Ca. Jonathan Olar

Promised hymnals preached searching for the rivers and the Redwoods but nothing left to find only my lasting prayer on my tongue pleading, as if all is as good as none,

Poetry 62

and my heart is wrought with every endearing phrase spoken to find you, Clara, waiting at the river in the Redwoods.

Living Waters Review

Renaissance Cana Scott

my name is zero empty of profundity devoid of definition. it was appointed to me by architects not by their own schemes but from the machinations of probability plucked from plausible pages of holier pens.

Poetry 63

the geography is indefinite those foreign lands, my lone namesake. venerated for the miracle of origin where water trickled to the vine and men first believed. since my name is naught and the spring is void let it forge its own out of the assembly of my movements. streaking passage for fortune until bloodwine remedies the earth.

Spring 2021

Stargazing Bethany Conover

The bookshelf scan led to nothing new, he’d never been persuaded to house Austen or remember Rosetti. Sitting on the goblin green couch reminded her that his sense was askew, but she thought she loved him for his complexity. He liked watching blinking lights and quadrilateral shapes, whereas words dancing through her strayed to tell a tale of Frost’s home burial as an escape.

Poetry 64

She was the lady of Shallot, before her feet the mirror laid, but those stories slipped through the fingers of her thoughts as his gaze turned to her bereft face. “Having fun?” “Of course.” Nodding he turned back to his controls, she crossed her legs in comfort, taking another sweep of the bookshelf.

Living Waters Review

Carving on the Wall Erin Edwards

finality escapes aside from sharp ending of loss with farewell comes cavernous chests shadows shade and switch carvings on the ribcage wall read tales of broken goodbye no certainty exists aside from searing sting yet he and she beside also lay in darkened cave and covered walls their etchings pen the story of survival, of light’s persistence by reading scratches in the hollow the light will soon be found and he and she beside will greet you as you stand freely, sunlit, whole

Spring 2021

Poetry 65

Reflections Sarah Schwalm

Colored Pencil 66

Living Waters Review

Michelangelo Stared Brynn Richer

Maybe I shouldn’t idolize love the way a chisel does marble, but the Statue of David has heart-shaped pupils for a reason. Scraping feels like shedding skin instead of brute force carving away

Poetry

Immovable doesn’t always feel stubborn on perfect pressure points.

Sanguine cement in marbled veins eventually flows finding skipping pulse in chipped vibrations:

Clink,

tap-tap,

tap, clink,

…thump.

—the creative heartbeat yearning for appreciation since its first crack. Without this metal wedge driving, who’s to say my hands would fit together on their own? to say one day an earthquake will rumble, and I’ll already be lovingly prepared to crumble fully? Michelangelo stared for months at his chunk of stone, but I don’t mind if my artisan’s hands find their inspiration along the way.

Spring 2021

A Medieval Church in the Czech Countryside Lisa Guagliano

cobblestones hurt my feet marching up the ancient streets to a mountain side and long dead martyr the church dim and dark the air still and calm

Poetry

an old lady prays

68 I sit two rows back from the left the light streams in on the saint martyred for the Lord his presence never changing always accepting she stands up to leave stops and speaks to me I nod and smile, she smiles at me and leaves alone I pray for the old lady the long dead, and the ones to come.

Living Waters Review

Rewriting Grace Brooke Stanish

rewrite the way pupils lift light with honey lashes, rewrite it so that they lift me too; rewrite the dirt breath folding around a neck when it molds into earth; rewrite your embrace, sun-spotted as clay; rewrite belief as an orbit, flailing, plucked & see what’s left; rewrite the planet falling off your lips; rewrite the breath lifting grass so that it means something in alone; rewrite silence & dash it upon the rocks until laughter crumbles down; rewrite what you thought you knew of your skin & sin & earth silk that never fails to kiss your feet, rewriting you to begin

Spring 2021

Poetry 69

Infinity Nathan Nettles

Sculpture 70

Living Waters Review

An Aleatoric Canticle Bryce Langston

Sing to the Lord a new song. Rearrange what is, for there is nothing other than what has been and what He has made. Old creation be in a new way— in difference of billionths, proclaim the glory of God.

Poetry The leaves of branches sprout, fall in reverence upon a grassy altar waving palms bow and rise, dry and lay prostrate the hair of a newborn grows just as a blossom universe unfolds. Sing to the Lord a new song, though there is nothing new here— sing to the Lord a new song.

Spring 2021

Funeral Reunion Christion Garner

Mac & cheese, chicken please, collard greens, some frozen peas, fresh-baked yam, cranberry jam, canned spam, honey ham. But this ain’t a holiday.

Poetry 72

Long olive wood table, self-serve. Be sure not to serve yourself too well. Many recipes only grandmas preserve for this kind of farewell. Hunger calls the distant and estranged prodigals. This gathering chronicles one lost, many gained.

Living Waters Review

Grati-dudes Cailan Owens

y dad was so ecstatic when he finally bought his majestic, perfect Hobie Cat. A Hobie Cat is like a mini sailboat, and the middle is made of a trampoline-like fabric. They’re made to be relaxing, fun, and easy to navigate, but of course, my dad and I just had to prove that wrong. It was a gloriously sunny day in Delray Beach, and the Hobie Cat culture was alive. All of the owners lined their boats up along the beach, waiting for the perfect time to go out. My family and I walked on to the beach with our equipment, and Peter, my favorite of my dad’s “Hobie Dogs,” approached us. “Hey, man, the wind is super strong today. Best be careful not to hit any wind pockets or you’ll go sailing! And not in a good way, man, not in a good way.” Immediately, my mom and sister opted out of the ride, but I, like the hare-brained person I am, body scarred from all the accidents we’ve had before, strapped on my lifejacket and got ready for said “gnarly wind pockets.” For the first few minutes, the boat ride was enjoyable. The water was pretty steady, even though our pace quickened for a couple seconds on occasion. The weather itself was stereotypical: a bright sun with a satisfactory smattering of fluffy clouds. I fully expected to see a friendly dolphin playfully swim at our side. I could see my mom standing at the shore, hands on her hips, waving occasionally, and my sister was sunbathing. As we rode, I inhaled the sea spray, and I felt free. I even thought about taking my lifejacket off. Then, our boat suddenly went speeding down the current, and we picked up so much wind that the boat

Spring 2021

might have lifted off the water’s surface. The waves crashed against us, but we handled them—well, most of them. There was a bit of a blur, a yell, and then a splash. I looked for my dad and spied him in the water by the boat, which was on its side. The side that was in the air had my leg pinned neatly between the edge and the trampoline, and there I was, arms crossed, body upside down, grimacing at my father, the “sailor.” I pushed my leg out with great difficulty, but the boat was an even more daunting task. I couldn’t help my dad in any way, and there was no way he could flip it on his own. That’s when Fabio appeared. I call him Fabio, but he was probably a “Mike” or something. He and a friend—we can call him Moondoggie—paddled on their surfboards to us. “Woah, dude! Need some help there?” Moondoggie called to my dad, who nodded. Fabio smiled widely, his hair remarkably not wet at all, then paddled over to me. “Hold the board, my little dudette,” he winked, then butterflied over to my dad, jumping on the edge of the sailboat with Moondoggie, trying to flip it around. Meanwhile, as I leaned on Fabio’s righteous lime green surfboard, I saw my sister sprinting across the beach, and my mother standing at the shore, most likely panicking and cursing to herself in Spanish. She doesn’t swim. Next thing I know, a jet ski was bounding toward us, and another dude—let’s call him Hasselhoff—called out to me with a bright, almost blue smile. “Hey there,” he winked. “You Cailan Owens?” “Umm, yes?” I said incredulously, looking over at Fabio, who shrugged and gave a laugh. “Your mom sent me. Ready to go?” he asked, motioning to the jet ski. I climbed on to the edge of the jet ski and held on tight. I looked back behind me to see my dad, Fabio, and Moondoggie successfully flip the boat. I shook my head and let out a chuckle. My dad sold the boat a month later.

Flash Essay 73

Psalm 72:7 Lucy Bacon

Watercolor 74

Living Waters Review

Organ Garden Gwendolyn Dressler

Mothers are gardens. They make vegetables and fruits. Little seeds nestled in crimson soil. Blossoming into kidney beans and sweet potatoes snug and curled into a pancreas. The branches and twigs stretch within ribs from a bushel of grapes and a bough of figs. Nurtured by the roots of her wrists, her garden blooms from love, warmth, and will. She is the master of twists and tills. A humming tomato is swollen and gross, while the walnut crinkles, shrivels, and cleaves the brain. Pale white celery makes bones grow. Mothers are gardens – like Mary and Eve.

Spring 2021

Poetry 75

Rainbow Hues Sarah Schwalm

Acrylic 76

Living Waters Review

Clutter Grace Cram

soiled snow clinging to the curbside we were back to back on the bus, all bundled up ice & lights flashing by a folded piece of paper, pressed to my thigh. bass pounding insults & laughter abounding thinking the night would always last

Poetry a discarded ticket stub on my dash. fingers tracing the flowery ink tales told & heart bared— always wishing me the best, a crumpled envelope upon the desk. smell of smoke & fire wafting in the crowd, i know you’re watching the most fascinating face you’ve ever seen ten numbers strung together on my screen. salt lingering on cracked lips & limbs, it’s just us & the waves & the sun, rising and a sunflower in a vase, dying?

Spring 2021

Oxford in Lockdown Lauren Johnson

What wooden doors assume—a way inside, a welcome warm—is not allowed in lockdown. Exteriors are grand: the flaxen stone of Radcliffe Camera, the precise, pied shadows etched by pointed, layered spires, the townhomes blue and pink as watercolor. Display windows of books and pens provide

Poetry

a glimpse of wares that now online are found.

In grocery stores, you’re meant to shop alone, to wear a mask, to distance, all open hours. Its true exteriors are grand, but if the doors and walls and gates grow tiresome, then turn away from cobblestone, and find an outdoor place that calls you in—a cliff serene, a park where you acquire some arboreal neighbors, a meadow lush with the footprints of spring—and sniff a whiff of sky and land; the entire sum has witnessed winter fade, and can remind our weary souls to listen for the thrush.

Living Waters Review

The First House on the Left Sydney Mantay

my mailbox overflows every afternoon letters, bills, coupons and magazines addressed to Patrick Johnson, Sam Good, Anne Park my mail reads, “Current Resident of…” the crab grass grows tall. I don’t own a lawn mower or renter’s insurance

Poetry I sleep on blind faith and naiveté. under a hundred-year-old roof I cozy up against cold stucco walls that hold pipes that don’t drain doors and windows that stick in the summer. The words form my landlord ring true: “Enjoy the house, it’s character building.”

Spring 2021

Renovations 2021 Jonathan Olar

Photography 80

Living Waters Review

From a Ship Samantha Wilber

My mother sighs she is running her thumb over her father’s letters to her mother tracing the cursive up

Poetry

and

down the waves of the boat rock the records hum Sinatra over the whispers of rain my grandfather thinks about his newborn girl

Spring 2021

Wedding Receptions Shelby Parks

Flash Fiction 82

hen the clinking of forks on glasses subsides, you will find my mother in the middle of the dance floor. Does she even know the songs that the DJ is playing? Definitely not. It doesn’t matter. She swishes her hair and dress in one fluid, rhythmic swivel and is free in a way that I will never understand. “Come on over and dance with me!” But there are too many people that I don’t know. If I get up, these strangers will look. They will see that my dress is too tight. That my lipstick has faded from eating the catered chicken. That I am uncomfortable and clumsy and not enough. They will see me. I want to join her. I can’t. I shake my head. She shakes hers. In her bright, luminous green eyes there is a minute flash of something. Of disappointment. Pity? Sadness. Then she continues swaying—eyes closed, ears tuned in to the music—for the celebration that she never had. For her daughter who won’t get out of her plastic folding chair. Dancing because she doesn’t care and dancing because she cares so much. I watch her. She dances.

Living Waters Review

Midnight Richard De La Rosa

y shoes are the good type of old. The flash of a Converse emblem expresses a youthful delinquency that was never far from these summer nights. Outside, the midnight air whirls around and my hair swirls about in indecisive directions. In the distance, the city lights synthesize with the night. It turns the sky purple, and the anticipation of the unknown becomes a blur of wild serendipity. Tonight, only the streetlights are awake. They watch me with a tender glow. I can feel the wind pushing me forward and I begin to run—to be in every vestige of this freedom.

Spring 2021

Essay 83

Ammachi’s House Isabel Isaac

the sky is always blue on lindley avenue. sometimes it snows. most times sunflowers grow, climbing and climbing until they touch the roof. inside, the rooms are hazy and warm, decades of life buried into peeling paint.

Poetry 84

the front door is always open, the tv plays soaps that go ignored. the dining table is never bare. vegetables from the backyard sit on thrones of short rice and spiced fish, sown by calloused fingers, tasting of summer’s air. at dusk we join the moon on the porch, heavy eyes and aching hands close in prayer. ammachi kisses us goodbye.

Living Waters Review

Portrait Study #3 Lucy Bacon

Acrylic 85

Spring 2021

My Brother Had Fire in His Skin Scott Cotto

Poetry 86

My brother could hold fire in his skin.

There were days when his fire burned too bright,

I saw it every day,

and not even opening the window in the winter could cool

when he would slip his shirt on and walk around the

him down.

house looking for something that he misplaced. When he

He would scream his dragon scream,

stepped,

and cry his dragon tears.

the foot prints ignited and simmered away with a small

And it took everything for mom and dad to calm him.

puff of smoke that evaporated fast. His words burned the

It didn’t last long…the fire always died out and the embers

walls down.

would settle in his skin again.

I’ve seen it. Every time he spoke…poof…the walls

I always wondered why I never learned Spanish.

disintegrated.

When mom and dad and my brother talked it seemed like

He could only do so much when the fire went out, though.

sparks that would ignite the room with passion.

He told me that the days he spent in bed were the days

They would watch these shows that had no meaning to me,

the fire was smoldering out and that the only thing that

but they would laugh or cry or jump in excitement.

remained in his skin were embers. He told me he would

I wanted to learn…I wanted to know…but it never stuck

play with me when the fires were big again and that he

in my head.

could keep me warm and protected.

I knew that the language he stored built

Those were the best days.

the fire in his skin.

I watched him when we played video games, when we whispered under the sheets when reading comic books when we were supposed to be sleeping, and when he would lift me over his shoulders to carry me home after I fell asleep at the movies. He would always speak into my ear when he laid me in my bed and say the same thing: “Stay warm, Chiquito.”

Living Waters Review

Title Author

Poetry 89

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