by Michael Lythgoe   Remember fish & chips, Yorkshire bitter, lunch at Rule’s with the ghost of Dickens. In those days, I wandered flea markets, collected old prints, wood blocks, drawers to hold letters, brass knockers. On one corner of the neighborhood stood a tall building, like a missile ready to launch: Moss Bros. I… Read More Convent Garden

by Allen Guest   The assignment is a lyric poem; pastoral, she said. He knows this does not involve preaching, but now all he can think about is being in church. He is twelve years old. It’s May, and the tall sanctuary windows are open. Springtime gospel pours in like creek water, drowning song and… Read More Broken Dams and Benedictions

by Allen Guest   I run this cold December morning along the high dike that protects my college town from the big lake, which today mirrors a smooth, gray sky which, in turn, mirrors the flat, gray water. Lake and sky converge on the far shore, two featureless sheets zippered together by a line of… Read More The Kingfisher

by Michael Lythgoe He asks us to sketch what we see as if we are in a studio. Act as model, as artist. Draw lines. Record Holy City sounds, the light, a gateway, bodies in motion, at rest, a child’s voice; a black horse pulls a carriage; hear hoofs clop—the slam of fists on war… Read More Circling The Ginkgo Tree In Charleston

by Marcie Behm-Bultz A snow pack hangs between sharp-toothed peaks in the distant gorge. It settles into a long white cloud in the perfect blue sky and at night it rises to meld with stars that surround the Southern Cross. The sound of meltwater in November’s Spring thunders in the far-away, crushing and smoothing the… Read More The Maori Believe that Man is Eating Ice