Happy full moon to everyone. The fifty-fourth Moon Prize on today's full moon goes to Chella Courington's poem "Eurydice."

Eurydice

by Chella Courington

Women have cried over my confinement

in hell by a husband who loved me so

he could not turn away

could not abide the caveat.

These long dark days

underground

breathless

I have not lived yearning for him.

I’m fine.

Did you really believe he wanted me

on earth with him?

Orpheus?

The beloved singer?

What would he sing if I were there?

For his song he needed me

buried beneath the crushing ground

star-crossed love that could never vanish

because it never was.

He didn’t desire a woman

bloody with menstrual rituals

whose body once luminous would be taken by time.

Orpheus could not accept such a betrayal.

He wanted me as nymph, not crone.

Even more than age

he feared my voice.

Afraid it would rise above his.

What did he know of suffering and forgiveness?

I was the one severed from the sun

shut in subterranean darkness

barely enough oxygen.

He could have joined me the day I descended.

A knife to his throat, a serpent to his breast.

But he did none of these.

Came to me later by other hands.

I have no use for him.

* * * * *

Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and stories appear or are forthcoming in numerous anthologies and journals including SmokeLong Quarterly, The Collagist, and The Los Angeles Review. Her novella, Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage, is available at Breaking Rules Publishing. (chellacourington.net)

shatterproof

by Jill Crainshaw

(almost four years ago) 

class a farm team ball game 

a mid-sized southern city 

girl in yellow crocs 

toddler size 11 

“Oh, say can you see?” 

her hand over her heart 

scrutinizing a standard star-showered 

stalwart and still 

while summer cicadas whirred and thrummed 

“What so proudly we hailed.” 

my phone buzzes the news 

glass dome fragmenting 

“first woman nominated by a major party” 

while a hometown soprano soloes 

“At the twilight’s last gleaming.” 

does she see, this croc-clad citizen? 

the spangled signpost unfurling 

a wished-upon possibility too-long postponed 

“O’er the land of the free 

and the home of the brave.” 

(today) 

she wears red converse high tops now

youth size six 

“Oh, say can you see?” 

eyes scrutinize a cloudy night sky 

for wished-upon dreams 

given another rain check 

“I thought there was room for me.” 

(four more years) 

she longs to walk through 

sharp shattered shards 

but the glass gleams rock hard

slippery as winter ice 

“O’er the land of the free 

and the home of the brave” 

(“I pinky-promise”) 

she persists. “Madam President” i whisper into 

the breath of the soaring anthem

long-muted voices rise up with mine

arch the glacial canopy

until it breaks loose and

we become galaxies of wished-upon

stars beating our fiery wings

flying—finally—fierce and free

* * * * *

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She enjoys exploring how words give voice to unexpected ideas, insights and visions.

Language of ash

by Carolyn Cushing

Rest your hip 

in curve of earth.

Since you are ash

you lift like hawk’s feathers

staring into night’s embrace.

Silence makes you a stairway

to climb. Beside my window

trees sing shadow to shadow

shaping words unheard but known:

I am without origin 

now. Without language,

I hear the secret 

of leaves come 

from nothing

to love, again, 

the light.

* * * * *

Carolyn Cushing is a poet inspired by nature, slightly obsessed with cells, and currently focused on the places where life and death meet. She has been a finalist for the Philbrick Poetry Award of the Providence Athenaeum (2012) and the Tarantula Poetry Contest of Pilgrimage Journal (2018). Her poetry and prose can be found at soulpathsanctuary.com.

First Anniversary Prayers

by Carolyn Cushing

Dear Departed One,

The evening 

became evening

became dark,

led you to Nowhere.

I knelt at that threshold

whispering all the words

I knew into Winter,

night after long night

down on my knees.

I couldn’t leave.

But Spring came and ice broke.

I mixed your ash in with the seeds,

answered soil’s call to be fed.

Prayers now in my palms,

under my nails, turning the earth.

I watched green take the field,

raise the vine, feed the bud

and blood of strawberry

opened my lips.

I walked then 

in our old places

as green turned to flame,

turned to brown,

everything fell down 

and this is the day 

you’ve been gone 

in all the seasons.

I’ve used up my prayers

A white goose rises

so close I hear air lift each feather,

the sound of earth embracing sky,

turning me into the shift

where I no longer speak

but instead listen to hear 

from the wind

from the field 

from the snow

the prayer 

you make now 

for me.

* * * * *

Carolyn Cushing is a poet inspired by nature, slightly obsessed with cells, and currently focused on the places where life and death meet. She has been a finalist for the Philbrick Poetry Award of the Providence Athenaeum (2012) and the Tarantula Poetry Contest of Pilgrimage Journal (2018). Her poetry and prose can be found at soulpathsanctuary.com.

MOTHER

by Katherine West

To reach the mother

You must cross

The river

Not

When it is jade

And glass

Jade in the deeper

Middle

With its smooth baritone dips

Glass along the pebble

Edges

With their lacy soprano ripples

No

You must cross

After the first snow

The heavy wet one

That snaps junipers—

Snipers

In the silent dawn

That fills the valleys

With mud

And slash

That fills the river

That turns it brown

And deafening

As a fighter plane

Or a large animal

In pain

Only then

Can you put your bare

Foot

Into the roar

Can you wade

Naked

Into the maw

Of the brown bear

Ice

Up to your thighs

Your withered flower

Your belly

A small pouch

Where you carry

All your unborn children

Your young girl’s

Unsucked breasts

Your unwrung neck

Your ghost hair

Your Neolithic brain waves

Sending out endless

Calls

For the mother

You will not make it

Across

The brown bear

Will eat you

Will swallow you down

You will not sleep

You will not be

You will not hear

The music

Shift

As the bear

Lumbers away

The cellos

Fade

Replaced

By the kingfisher’s

Laugh

The flutes

You will also

Not hear

That will not wake you

You

Who are not asleep

Cannot be roused

You

Who are now

Perhaps

A white rock

Stretched out

Along the deepest trough

Of the current

Or a young moon

Curled around its dark mother

On a hazy evening

You only glow

Beneath the surface

I cannot see your face

But our eyes

Meet

As the great blue

Heron

Glides in low overhead

And around the bend

* * * * *

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness and performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and New Verse News, which recently nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize.

Love in the Time of Corona

(Beneath the Gentle Trees)

by Katherine West

Some are too tired to go on

they sit down by the side of the road

using their bundles as cushions—

some sit alone

watching the dusty

scrub oaks

nod with the south wind

watching them as if all the answers

were contained

in their slow

noble

movement

their relationship

with what breaks them

or brings them the food

of rain

and runoff—

some sit together

watching each other

the same way the solitary

watch the trees

they observe the way the hair

of babies

and ancients

grows in the same

fluffy

tufts

like milkweed pods

split

opening

about to let go

or

the way old hands

their swollen fingers and thumbs

unable to grasp

any longer

are finally

at rest

still as lizards

in the sun

small batteries

being charged

filled up utterly

with what they might call God

or

the way eyes

glint

at the curve

of the orb

the way the curve

of the river glints

in late afternoon

turns white

as the eye

after the all day blue

of the sky—

some keep going

not even turning their heads

as they leave their brothers and sisters

behind

they are only feet

dry

cracked

bleeding

they see nothing but the road

as it disappears

into the horizon

while the ones left behind

curl up together

a family

of fallen leaves

beneath the gentle trees


* * * * *

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness and performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and New Verse News, which recently nominated her poem, And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize.

Fill My Heart With Spring

by Bilquis Fatima

I can hear the birds sing

For sure it is the song of spring.

The winter gray has faded away,

And nature enchants with its colorful display.

Squirrels wake up from wintry slumber

Embarking on their marathon number.

Meandering bees collect drops of nectar  

To nodding blooms softly whisper.

Verily coldness of hearts too melts away

As season of festivities is in full sway

Somewhere a limping heart looks at the sky

Praying to be given another try.

For it too is entitled to colors of spring

When dreams and fantasies take wings  

To walk the valley where elixir flows,

Unmindful of woes and throes.

Verily each life yearns for blissful reasons

So to start afresh, let spring be the season.

* * * * *

Bilquis Fatima, a lover of the greens, music and speaker for social issues, has allowed her

feelings to be expressed as short writings, speeches and poems. She is a postgraduate in

Chemistry and has keen interest in poetry, writing in English and Urdu, with her debut

book being ‘POETIC AROMA.’ Her works have been published in Indian and International

literary spheres like Sahitya Anand, Destiny Poets U.K, Spillwords, and Writing in a

Woman’s Voice.