IN PRAISE OF SMALL THINGS

by Michelle DeRose

Things too small to hold
today’s news: the fingernail
of a newborn, sharpened
tip of this pencil, a candle
flame, our old Tom’s purr.
The last breath of a dissolving
mint, the dog’s white brow
curling in her brown patch.
The chip of slate my six
year-old once passed me.
Hold it in your hand and it will soothe
you, he said. And it does.

Michelle DeRose, Professor Emerita of English, lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her poetry won the Chancellor's Prize in 2024 and the Faruq Z Bey award in 2023 from the Poetry Society of Michigan, and her chapbooks were finalists in the 2023 and 2024 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press competition.

DECEMBER 2024

a Golden Shovel poem based on a line from Wendell Berry’s “Sabbaths 2005 I”

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

distressed     appalled     by all    this

     i set alight    the Christmas Candle

       illumine my soul    against

darkness of hatred    of evil      that the

          culture      carries in the wind

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations. She began writing in her early 70s, and has now been published more than 80 times in anthologies, on-line zines, and magazines. Five poems have been turned into a song cycle titled Resistance by composer Steven Luksan and performed in Seattle and Durham. Her latest chapbook Seasonings (Kelsay Books) was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. She lives in Raleigh, NC.

FOR EVERY LOST SOUL, A CANDLE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Glowing Christmas candle in frosted home window, photograph by Thomas Baker —Fine Art America

For every lost soul, a candle

in the window spills its light

into dusky night. Darkening air

softens with hope’s holiday

aromas—sage, balsam, fir, spruce.

Its flame offers a mirror into a forest’s

beating heart, warming deep woods

where easy pathways have slipped

past sight, obscured by doubt, loss.

Its flickered patterns soothe us

as we glance inside into a world

beyond our reach. We want to see

our own reflections there, as if we

had struck the match, poured a glass

of claret, turned on seasonal carols,

smiled at loved ones gathered fireside.

Not the other side where time fells us.

Where its passage startles us anew

as memories sparkle, seduce us

for an instant before they waiver,

then devolve to our collective umbra.

Author's Note: As of November 27, 2022, there have been over 617 mass shootings in the United States and more than 40,000 people have died of gun-related deaths. www.gunviolencearchive.org 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

THIS DAY WILL NOT JUST LIVE IN INFAMY

by Michael Mark

Shutterstock

For Lolo

 

Because it is your birthday, I’m going to ignore 

the four thousand people in our country who will die today. 

 

Because it is your birthday, I’m going to erase from my mind 

the insane president and treasonous riot he instigated

                                 

and the love video he put out to his thug followers as five people died 

during the siege of the Capitol, and pretend the polls are fake 

 

that say 45% of Republicans believe the breaking 

and entering was the right thing to do, and I’m going 

 

to drive to the card store – the good one, not the grocery

or the pharmacy with their picked-over puns,

 

but the fancy one that specializes in fine crafted, highly artistic 

expressions of earnest emotions, featuring 

 

only the cutest kitten and puppy pics, and charge 

at least six dollars and ninety-nine cents for ironic yet sincere stuff like: 

 

You’re not getting older—oh wait!—I just checked 

your sun dial—yes you are! Because it is your birthday 

 

I’m not going to even wonder if we should be celebrating 

considering today’s particularly disappointing jobs report

 

and the unnerving delay on stimulus checks and vaccines. 

I’m going to interrogate every rack on every aisle to pick out 

 

your perfect card, and because I can’t stop the riots 

or bring back the dead, or deliver the checks or administer the vaccine, 

 

I will, because it is your birthday, light the candle, and watch 

you close your eyes to the whole world and make your wish. 

 

Michael Mark’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Arkansas International, Copper Nickel, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Salamander, The Southern Review, The Sun, Waxwing, and The Poetry Foundation's American Life in Poetry. He’s the author of two books of stories including Toba and At the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum).

CROSSING THE DIVIDE

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trimmer

Video published Nov. 18, 2015: Mohamed Abdeslam, brother of suspected Paris attackers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam lit candles and placed them on the window sill of his home during a vigil in Molenbeek, Belgium on Thursday, in solidarity with the people of France.

In the snowy wallow beside the road,
the elk do not move. Twenty or more.
The blue light of morning makes them blue.

It would be easy to drive past them
without noticing. How much do I miss
as I move through the world?

On the news, they speak of a candlelight vigil
near Brussels. In my mind, I turn the steering
wheel and begin the drive east to join the crowd.

Never mind the oceans, the wilderness
that separates us. Never mind that we
have never met. I get my candle ready.

The car, however, knows the way to work.
It moves steadily toward the north
past meadows where I notice nothing.

In the oncoming lane, almost all the cars
have their lights on, though by now
it is bright enough to see without them.

We who travel mountain roads have learned
the value of shining whatever light we have
so as not to make more dead.

Oh this light. It’s never enough.
Still this invitation to shine it
as brightly, as often as we can.


Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and on river rocks. She was recently appointed Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope used the position to launch “Heard of Poets,” an interactive poetry map of Western Colorado poets. She directed the Telluride Writers Guild for 10 years and now co-directs the Talking Gourds Poetry Club. Since 2005, she’s written a poem a day. Favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.

VALENTINE

by Howie Good

Image source: appszoom

We share one long border.
When she breathes in,
I must breathe out.

There may be arguments
against this, or at least

against us attempting
to build a kingdom
out of blowing rain.

What began in regicide
continues somehow

in majesty & the small,
impossibly bright light
of her drowned candle.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.