MIDNIGHT'S MORNING: AN ODE TO EPIPHANY 2021

by Jill Crainshaw

Epiphany Painting by catherine forsayeth

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Wherever the star takes us.”

“What star?”

“The fierce one—”

“I never liked the graveyard shift.

How will we stay awake?

When will we sleep? I need sleep.”

“Sure, why not? I think the star

is whimsical, by the way.”

They turn their eyes skyward. At night.

Eager. 

Reluctant.

Nonchalant.

“Wisdom wizards follow foolish flight of fancy—”

a cosmic planetary alignment

    a sixth spirit-sense

    a thousand lifetimes of longings

“Stop looking back.”

“I left—things—lost—things—back there.”

“What’s lost waits up ahead.”

“What’s lost nips at our heels.”

They emerge from a forlorn forest.

First light nudges Mama Wren from nighttime 

nesting in a smooth-barked dogwood.

The whimsy-fierce star hesitates—

They do too. 

Midnight morning trees breathe

an infant lullaby,

music brighter than light.

“Come with me.”

Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

CHANCELLORSVILLE

by Rick Mullin

The civil war that everybody fears

will one day bring our guns into the street

has been a virtual reality for years.

We are many battles in, replete

with bloodless disestablishment of norms

equating to the end-stop of a dream,

the downfall of democracy and state.

On Facebook, nobody can hear you scream.

It’s harmless when a friend posts, “Feel the hate”.

We laugh and like it and the hatred storms.

But this year the Epiphany may yield 

at last that dreaded outcome, civil war

with something like real armies in the field

and abject treason on the Senate floor.

With carnage in its more familiar forms.

Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Lullaby and Wheel.

PENITENTIAL SEASON OF LENT

by Martha Landman

"Police brutality alleged at Sydney Gay Mardi Gras: Outcry over video showing man being thrown to the ground during arrest." --The Guardian, March 6, 2013


                                "They just slammed his head. There's blood all over the ground."      


I had an epiphany the day before Ash Wednesday:
I drew my tourist card and earned $30m for the state

of New South Wales celebrating equal marriage rights
a thousand police officers proudly parading on my side

for this one day we’ll forfeit the right to see young revellers
manhandled and slammed to the ground, punched in the head

‘cause the cops told us so; during this time of penitence, and
for as long as you love me, we will not film the violence

the blood curdled cries: what have I done wrong?
For as long as we can breathe we’ll talk about

that sound of his head hitting the floor, Delta’s buzz
at the gay parade, the confessions still to be made.


Martha Landman is an Australian poet whose creativity feeds off the news.