Windhover a Journal of Christian Literature

Windhover A Journal of Christian Literature

Windhover

A Journal of Christian Literature

April 2011 Volume 15

Windhover A Journal of Christian Literature

Volume 15 • April 2011

Editor Audell Shelburne

Contributing Editors Joe R. Christopher Michael H. Lythgoe

Art Editor Helen Kwiatkowski

Assistant Editors Jenny Bell Beth Melles

Print Coordinator Randy Yandell

Board of Advisors Brian Blackley, North Carolina State University Laura Payne Butler, Sul Ross University Scott Cairns, University of Missouri Theresa DiPasquale, Whitman College Chris Willerton, Abilene Christian University

Cover: Vessel by Johanna Mueller

Cover design by Helen Kwiatkowski

In Memoriam

John Thomas Shawcross

Born February 10, 1924 Died March 8, 2011

Forward

This is the fi fteenth volume of Windhover, my eighth to produce as chief editor. I approach its release with an odd mix of feelings: pride, as I look back over the previous issues to see the improvements in quality; pleasure, as I see the names of so many writers who are now among my friends; satisfaction, as I consider the continued successes of writers who have blessed us with their work; and more than a little sadness. I am sad to say that this issue will be my last as editor. I am grateful to many people for their help: Joe Christopher, Michael Lythgoe, Helen Kwiatkowski, Chris Willerton, Carolyn Poulter, Beth Melles, and Jenny Bell, who have served as editors through the years. I am thankful for the fi nancial support of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Without it, the journal would not exist. I am also sad to report the death of John Shawcross. I fi rst met John at the John Donne Society. He was a legendary endowed professor and scholar, and I was a timid graduate student who happened to be reading a paper on the same panel. He bolstered me and helped me fi t in. Years later, John welcomed my request to become a member of the Board of Advisors of Windhover. I initially had hoped that he would merely lend me his good name to help me promote the journal, to broaden its appeal to another set of readers. I should have known that John would not accept an empty honorifi c title. Each year after I sent him his copy of the journal to thank him for his willingness to help me, I would receive a four- or fi ve-page handwritten note, detailing his criticism of the most recent issue and his responses to the different poems, stories, art, and reviews. He let me know when something worked, when it failed, when we were being too didactic, or whatever. And, anyone who knew John will not be surprised to learn, he was always right. I wanted to say “almost always,” but, looking back over his notes to me, I don’t see a single time that his advice regarding Windhover was wrong. If you don’t know his work, google “Shawcross” and “Milton” or “Donne” and see what you have been missing. You will fi nd some of his 200 articles and more than 20 books. What you probably will not see is his congenial nature, his support and encouragement of students, young scholars, and professors, his kindness and love for people, all of which are even more striking when you understand the intellectual vigor and rigor and passion for literature, letters, and art. John Shawcross was one of a kind. I will miss his hand on my shoulder. While Windhover transitions to a new editor, I encourage you to support it and make it even better. I once had Field of Dreams syndrome, believing that if we published a high-quality journal, the sales and subscriptions would follow. But I’ve learned that building baseball fi elds in the middle of cornfi elds probably means empty seats. The new editor will need you as writers, but also as promoters and subscribers. Buy a copy for your church, your mother, or your local library. Spread the word and help Windhover fl y a little higher as dawn breaks on a new era.

Audell Shelburne Editor, 2002-2011 Contents

Forward

Poetry Mark E. Harden Lesson ...... 1

Karla K. Morton Holy Relics, the Turning Point ...... 2

Vicki Collins Heaven Came Down ...... 3

Philip C. Kolin A Butterﬂ y Sonata ...... 4 An Autopsy of the Cruciﬁ xion ...... 5

Sherry Craven Resurrection ...... 6 Transformation ...... 7

Christopher Anthony Fahy The Massacre of the Innocents ...... 8

Catherine L’Herisson Like a Fisherman ...... 9

Michael Hugh Lythgoe Tree Pollen at Easter ...... 10

Nathan Brown Ice and Snow ...... 11 At Your Funeral ...... 12 All the Same...... 13

Lyman Grant Answered Prayers ...... 14 Sometimes I Cannot ...... 15

Joe R. Christopher On a Friend Becoming an Oblate In the Order of Julian of Norwich ...... 16 Donna Bowling Chisos Basin, Big Bend ...... 18

Chet Corey Judas and the Three Ravens ...... 19

Larry D. Thomas The Wind ...... 20 Winter Doves ...... 21

Joan Mazza Makeovers ...... 22

Mary Jo Balistreri Touched by the Sacred ...... 23

Alan Berecka Divine Error ...... 24 Shopping for Miracles: Lourdes 1979 ...... 25

J. Paul Holcomb Labor as Worship ...... 26

Jim Davis God Country ...... 27

Douglas G. Campbell To Return ...... 28

Sarah Rehfeldt What the Light Can Conjoure ...... 29

Barbara Crooker Reformed ...... 41

Alan Birkelbach Quickening ...... 42

David Craig The Three Companions of St. Francis ...... 43

Nora M. Olivares First Exile ...... 48 Angela Alaimo O’Donnell Peter’s Glimpse ...... 49 Last Rite ...... 50 The Long Run...... 51

Prose: Fiction, Essays, Interviews and Reviews

Jacqueline Kolosov The World According to My Daughter ...... 52

Elizabeth Bruce Watching Over Pink Peas ...... 57

Joseph A. Parente St. Greta ...... 62

Hannah Heath Johnson October ...... 75

Mary Chandler Mr. Train Man and Martha ...... 82

Sørina Higgins The Eighth Annual George Nixon Memorial Lecture: Interview With Kelly Cherry ...... 87

Michael Hugh Lythgoe A Review of Pharaoh’s Daughter ...... 98

Barbara Crooker A Review of Slipping Out of Bloom ...... 101

Artwork John S. Hancock Artist’s Statement ...... 33

Johanna Mueller Artist’s Statement ...... 67

Contributors ...... 104

VOLUME 15

Mark E. Harden

LESSON a poor imitation of its namesake, its ﬁ berglass blades fractured beyond repair, the broken Black Hawk plummets—

Icarus found that folly trumps technology… be them titanium or wax, wings will fail— only gods may glide free on warm sea winds

1 W INDHOVER

Karla K. Morton

Holy Relics, the Turning Point

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them…that the Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea...so that all the peoples of the earth might know the mighty hand of the Lord.” —Joshua 4: 3-7, 23-24

The day the San Gabriel went dry, we stood, unbelieving, on the banks… Walking down where no dry feet had been, we gathered pointed stones of ﬂ int, shaped by ancient hands, to remind us of that miraculous summer day, when we gave up our old lives, and clung to each other, heeding only our hearts— the great burning compasses of God.

2 VOLUME 15

Vicki Collins

HEAVEN CAME DOWN

God’s voice broke heavy black cords of chaos, dispelled the nothingness, void without form; divided seams of the ﬁ rmament; wove orange sun streaks, yellow moon halo, white nimbus blanket and set lacy stars to shuttle across the sky.

God’s hands harnessed the water, a blue ribbon to slake the thirsty land; variegated valleys, sands of parchment, metallic mountains; fashioned sea creatures, ﬂ ying ﬂ ocks framed in V-formation, slubbing serpent with rainbow imitations of warp and weft, relegated to the dirt, basest fabric of this genesis with which God made man, pattern of His presence, keeper of creation, designed for reproduction, desired for covenant.

Gods breath blew spirit, life, and light through His glorious handiwork. Then the Alpha and Omega loomed over the Earth and declared, “It is good!”

3 W INDHOVER

Philip C. Kolin

A BUTTERFLY SONATA

They do not reap or sow Yet they furrow the air with delight And the sky with calm color. They drip small rainbows After stormy sparrow ﬂ ights Seesaw the horizon with hurry.

They are reminders That the earth glides More peacefully and kindly For those who like them Float free from Anchored anxiety.

Their wings are lovers’ Eyelashes quickening And slowing as passion Comes or goes. The wind of their wings Is the stuff of dreams Gossamered surprise.

They know about resurrections Rising from the humility Of earth’s grubs to Golden halos of Prismatic light Signed by the sun.

4 VOLUME 15

Philip C. Kolin

AN AUTOPSY OF THE CRUCIFIXION

Two millenniums later Doctors perform An autopsy On Christ on the cross–

How did he die? They probe scars, Measure the oxygenation Of His blood, The number of respirations He could or could not Take. How long His breathing would hold

Out. He spoke some words Clinical proof he did not die From suffocation, but his heart

Burst open, opening a ﬂ oodgate Of blood rushing into the pericardial Sack. There it is–

They know now how Christ died But why is not a part Of their medical alphabet Of bodies and blood.

5 W INDHOVER

Sherry Craven

RESURRECTION

I thought I could bring Mother back to life by shedding my skin, like a snake molting, leave the remnant of my life by the roadside and slide off somewhere else, neglect the breakfast dishes on the table, ignore the car running in the driveway. I would put my friends in the back of my closet with outgrown clothes, leave vacant my pew at church, empty the house of all things familiar. I would take on her life and make her whole again, like Jesus, she would be touchable once more, my hand into her heart. I hoped to drape her life over mine like those soft wool blankets people spread over sofas, or a silk shawl covering my shoulders, Mother would return.

I would move to her town, walk on her grass, smile at her friends, use the same cleaners, join the same garden club, and she would appear before me and not have died at all, just merely stepped out for a while.

But what I found was that no matter how often I shed my life, under my snakeskin, was me; I couldn’t leave my life by the road, her garden club didn’t know me, my car still needed starting, and the people at her cleaners didn’t think I was Mother.

So, I water the ﬂ owers at the cemetery, brush the red dirt from the pink granite headstone as if to lighten her load, and linger about looking for the life I left somewhere along the way deciding to resign from her garden club, look for my own cleaners, and leave resurrection to Jesus.

6 VOLUME 15

Sherry Craven

TRANSFORMATION

I fell in love with you because I wanted to change, to be somehow better than I am, to discover the sacred life, to become, like the caterpillar and the moth.

I longed to fuzz to green like spring, grow from seed to full-blown ﬂ ower, but I failed to transform.

By loving you I could rise above myself, an early morning fog lifting into the cool air revealing underneath a placid sheet of silver lake.

Somewhere in your arms, among the easy kisses, nestled within light words, I might ﬁ nd God, making me sanctiﬁ ed. But instead I remained who I was.

By going into you with love I would emerge redeemed, my face shining like new wine, eyes beaconing like a lighthouse, I would stand on the shore, transformed like the disciples at the shores of Galilee, blinded by realization, but then, in the end I knew it was not for you to make me holy.

7 W INDHOVER

Christopher Anthony Fahy

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS

I. Two dreams: one to leave by another path, One to ﬂ ee to Egypt straightaway. No help for the dreamless, The babies, toddlers, new borns. Playing it safe, Herod ordered death To those below two years of age: Knowing full well, the baby Could not be above two weeks, Fit object for his rage.

Jesus died to save all women and all men. The children died in sacriﬁ ce for Christ: He was more important, He must live. And yet, did He know? Could He hear their screams, alone and at prayer? Did He suffer guilt? Wonder why He survived? Question once, for them, His Father’s will?

Was he waiting all along, To be one with His peers: Feeling He must die in pain, That He must expiate His sin, His great good fortune, to live?

II. It is not enough, nothing is enough. Paradise with Christ cannot erase The baby skewered on a spear, The mother splashed with infant blood. What remains, what sustains, Is the Father, The awful silence of His love, The shared communion of His pain.

8 VOLUME 15

Catherine L’Herisson

LIKE A FISHERMAN

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. —1 Peter 5:7

Lord, like a ﬁ sherman, I cast my cares out to you, then reel them back in, over and over again, sometimes not even giving you time to take my troubles off the hook before I yank them back. Give me faith, patience, to leave them alone, let them sink down, way down deep into your heart of love. Let me lay down my rod, rest, wait in peace.

9 W INDHOVER

Michael Hugh Lythgoe

TREE POLLEN AT EASTER

Renewal walked out of the cave to heal, Left gold footprints in tree pollen dust, Left a knotted shroud for forensics to feel. We choke on renewal. Bees’ honey From local hives heals. Easter lily sounds horny; White blare. Waters do not heal; hear not rivers Rising. Feel the ﬂ ood. Fresh water only an hour old Runs from a glacier, pours into the Colorado The Colorado heals a little as it bleeds off For crops or vineyards; a drop or two to Los Angeles, Before it evaporates in Mexico. Tremblors shudder Baha, cross borders. Earthquake in Mexicali. Unheard underground rivers still hide there.

Tap the source. Surface water can drown us. It’s the season of renewal. Rehobeth Beach Bridges wash away. Write your name in pollen. Who will know? The Risen Lord knows; He comes and goes leaving sole prints in gold, A shroud bears a shadow of a man tortured: A mortal image nailed to a tree with arms Pointed in two different directions. He comes. He goes. He lives. He dies. Imagine the arms Folded over the body, hands at the crotch, An imprint left on linen smells like myrrh, left In a fl ash—like a burn of a fl ash bulb, a black & White negative left to be developed as if an icon— Painted fl at—was wrapped around a real man. Crusaders kissed such a cloth. Before it was lost.

Science reveals a male brain looks like a coral reef; MRI pictures the colorful lust. Birds fl ap, fi ght About sex. A female fl ies a palm frond to form A nest; she looks like a trapeze performer on a high Wire with a pole for balance. Spring is a circus. Wisteria begins to drip lavender. Sandal marks Show in yellow dust. Follow gold dust footprints: Resurrection. Listen for a heart’s murmur.

Fault lines feel hurt when our earth trembles. Maybe it is an underground river’s rumor Wanting to be heard. Maybe it is the fi rst Bumble bee’s fumble for the fi rst fl ower. Or, a white-robed stranger singing. Alleluia.

10 VOLUME 15

Nathan Brown

ICE AND SNOW

It came after a cold wet rain in the night that turned to sleet as the morning huddled under a gray blanket and coughed on the windows… the call.

I poured coffee, schnapps, and my wrenching sadness into a chipped red mug and sipped for a long time at the table in the back room.

You had ﬁ nally called the game—on account of heavy radiation— at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve… a touch of poetry, even in parting.

And now, an hour or so later, white ice is blowing sideways down the street as I listen to electronic sorrows and solace begin to pop up like corn into the inbox of my email.

Everybody remembers when they lost theirs, back when the Angel of Sarcoma ignored the blood above their doors as well. And I Reply to All my gratitude…and I mean them. But this morning… we lost ours. A last breath among manger scenes and old black & white movies with Jimmy Stewart running through the soft wet snow of a second chance and Santa Claus convincing New York City, again, that he is indeed real.

And I know Jesus and Santa are always busy during this hectic season—because of overpopulation ’n all—but…

I’d really hoped too.

11 W INDHOVER

Nathan Brown

AT YOUR FUNERAL

They printed your poem in the funeral program without the title or the correct line breaks. But they got the words right.

They were trying, I suppose, to get it all onto one page.

Maybe that’s what funerals are for. The grief is too long, and we need, somehow, to gather it up into one place…some terminal and exhausted space. Besides, they did do a fairly good job of following your speciﬁ c orders.

Well… except that they held it in the church sanctuary, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. But, my friend, too many people loved you, and most of them showed up. The smaller room—the one you’d wanted—wasn’t up to the gentle outpouring of muted sobs and stunted laughter.

But the stories from the pulpit were good, and they marked your desire for a touch of irreverence quite well. I could sense that God, in the robe and slippers of a Tuesday morning, was relaxed and having a much better time with your crazy, eclectic clan than the more acute company he’s required to dress up for on Sundays.

And, as usual, I got no clear answers from him to the questions I had about you.

I don’t know why it would’ve been such a bother just to let me know that the angels had in fact greeted you with a tray of salt- rimmed margaritas and that you were, ﬁ nally, able to hold two at once.

But I’ve learned over time to accept the silence he’s compelled to honor and to walk with him in my own irascible way on the cold back highway she’s led me down— collar up… hands in pockets… mouth mostly shut.

12 VOLUME 15

Nathan Brown

ALL THE SAME

I don’t know how much you’re allowed to say from wherever you are now, but the questions ﬂ oat in every morning lately with the smell of the coffee brewing.

Do the painters and poets continue to starve in heaven, because heaven knows it keeps their work honest?

Do the singers and songwriters sell no CDs up there either— because some devious angel wired the entire place for ﬁ le-sharing— so they have to wage their limping gospels in loud bars and coffee shops to the few who are inebriated or hurt enough to need the sideways message?

Do the prophets still sit ignored at the city gates because they’ve never learned how to dress properly or speak in words that people can understand?

Anyway… I’m only asking because I wouldn’t want things to be too unrecognizable up there.

13 W INDHOVER

Lyman Grant

ANSWERED PRAYERS

Road signs after you have driven over the cliff.

14 VOLUME 15

Lyman Grant

SOMETIMES I CANNOT look at photographs of children drowned in city parks while parents worked their second jobs. I cannot stare at t.v. news of white-laced girls raped by moms’ stoned boyfriends, of a boy’s broken ribs and arms, healed and hidden until autopsy glare. Forgive me. I’ve wrapped myself, frightened thing, in this cold print, to cry tonight at your closed door.

15 W INDHOVER

Joe R. Christopher

ON A FRIEND BECOMING AN OBLATE IN THE ORDER OF JULIAN OF NORWICH

God of thy goodnes give me thy self, for thou art enough to me; and I may aske nothing that is lesse, that is fullie worship to thee; and if I aske anything that is lesse, ever me wanteth. But onlie in thee I have all.

Come, Lady Poverty, come bind My soul to spiritual goods conﬁ ned, No longer to desire the world With all its prizes ’fore me whirled.

My life is shaped not by the love of money, Nor by the culture gained, possessions gained, Nor other strong results of money held, But by the love of God; in that is rest. I center all my self in God, just God.

Come, Lady Chastity, come bind My soul to love no longer twined With all the lusts beyond the law, With dreams below supernal awe.

My energy is shaped toward maturation: The sexual and the spiritual are one, Or nearly one; I must not hurt my other— My lover or my God—but celebrate, Support, and praise, and be astonished by.

Come, Lady Obedience, come bind My soul to others’ rules designed; No longer to impulses’ sway In idleness would I give way.

My duty is to Christ, which I’ve avowed; With critical awareness, to my Order, My Church, the Creeds—to others that I meet: The stranger may have words of needed wisdom, So I must listen with attention now

16 VOLUME 15

Come, Lady Pray’r, O now come bind My soul to regular hours aligned, Forgoing all the casual dreams That ﬁ ll the days with ego’d schemes.

My job is in my prayer: a daily ofﬁ ce, The sacramental worship, and contemplation— The latter bringing quiet to my life; Perhaps, like Julian, I’ll truly learn All manner of things shall be well, all shall be well.

17 W INDHOVER

Donna Bowling

CHISOS BASIN, BIG BEND

Surrounded by air that puriﬁ ed, cold enough to freeze sound and time, we curled like caterpillars in our downy bags, and slept the deep peace of the womb.

Awakened at daybreak by the bell tones of a mockingbird in its pine watchtower, we stretched limbs stiff as new wings and returned the sun’s golden smile.

Guarded each night by the granite mountains that supported the roof with a million stars, we breathed the silence that embraced us, secure in the safety of God’s tent.

18 VOLUME 15

Chet Corey

JUDAS AND THE THREE RAVENS

When Thomas saw three ravens— one on each shoulder, a third on the ground— he knew that Judas had hung himself from a shittah tree. The raven on one shoulder took wing with a madcap caw caca caw, canting Judas to the left, then swinging him round to face south, and then back toward the eastern rim’s faint light.

The second raven, as well, took wing with its madcap caw caca caw caw, canting the body to the right, swinging it to face south, and then back, until it stilled. But the third—worn sandals dangling above it from the white-bottomed feet of Judas, like pecked-over, rotted fruit—had found something of interest in droppings through his rent tunic, as through a diaper, wet and overfull. Something he’d eaten last: unblemished lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, blood commingled with urine. And then that third raven ﬂ ew off without a caw, the glint of a coin tweezed between its beak.

Thomas watched until far along the road he lost sight against sky turning toward storm. He’d no doubt Judas was dead; he’d seen three cruciﬁ ed twelve hours before— knew death’s fruity smell in the rising wind. He shinnied up the shittah toward the limb, as Judas must have in the hidden night, loosened the halter and eased the body down, as a woman would a water jar into a well, then hung by his huge, strong hands until he’d swung clear, dropping like a robber upon an unsuspecting man. But breath in Judas was as empty as his purse. Thomas knelt, lifted him across one knee, struggled beneath his weight and cold smell to stand, and staggered off toward where that third had ﬂ own. Before he’d gone a mile he’d found the Sanhedrin’s coin that raven dropt.

19 W INDHOVER

Larry D. Thomas

THE WIND

With cargo it’s carried for hundreds of miles, it blows in through the window from the northwest. Before it exits through the screen of the open, sliding glass door, it will leave the room a storage bin stacked full of invisible, olfactory packages, from the faint aroma of orchards far away ripe with apples to the scent of a nun’s ﬁ ngertips raking a page of onionskin days before, a nun sitting erect at the time on a bench in a convent garden, raking each letter of bright, inerasable words red as the blood of Eve.

20 VOLUME 15

Larry D. Thomas

WINTER DOVES

They’ve donned the grays, browns and beiges of the branch from which they protrude

like frozen leaps of faith. The winter wind is bitter and buffets them, brandishing

its knives of ice. They face the wind with nothing but down

to ward off its blows. With each fi erce blast, they merely scoot closer together, taking their stand, fl uffi ng the down around the fi ne silk threads of their necks, hunkering down for the night in the shape of a savage heart.

21 W INDHOVER

Joan Mazza

MAKEOVERS

On newsstands, men’s magazines have women on the covers, showing perfect skin, as much as they can, spilling ﬂ eshy youth smoothed ﬁ ne with makeup and airbrush, hairdos too delicate to touch. They sing like sirens.

Women’s magazines display before and after photos— what expert artists and ﬁ tted clothing can do, if you know how and where to stand. I always like before shots better: ordinary women, hair off their faces, no concealer to hide their stories and emotional range.

When worries make my face craggy with lines and ﬁ ssures, and things that haunt me show like forehead tattoos, I go outside with a notebook, face the west woods and winds, my wrinkles airbrushed by phrases ﬂ ung on afternoon breezes.

22 VOLUME 15

Mary Jo Balistreri

TOUCHED BY THE SACRED

Shimmering but cold, late afternoon rides across day. The gulf, pushed by wind, moves fast but slow—no ripples. And though the wind negates the sun’s warmth, it cannot erase the diamond-dazzle, or sheen of light that swallows sailboats in its maw.

As I refl ect, Gerard Manley Hopkins comes in on a wave—his concept of inscape, living into the thing, as I live into this blinding brightness, as if entombed in its womb—salt water sea, amniotic fl uid, fl oating cloud of unknowing. I cannot explain what’s happening or the rise of joy. But I say Yes. Yes to everything.

23 W INDHOVER

Alan Berecka

DIVINE ERROR

In a Gnostic Gospel, the child Christ sits playing, molding clay into life-sized doves. A young friend looks on as Christ brings the birds to his mouth. He breathes life into the clay. Startled into being, the doves ﬂ y off singing praise.

After a small ﬂ ock had taken wing, the child sitting next to Christ snapped. Unable to take anymore of the Son of Man’s divine showing off, he grabbed a still clay dove and twisted its head free from its thin neck, and ﬂ ung both parts across a small courtyard. The boy puffed his chest and laughed as the bird splattered on the hot ground.

Jesus lost control of his human half. He grabbed his former friend, who felt the wrath of an angry God pulsing through him until he, electriﬁ ed, fell dead.

Mother Mary saw it all. Jesus H. Christ! What have you done? Jesus didn’t have to be omniscient to know he had stepped into it deep. Every child understands what it means when a parent screams a middle name.

By her command and his power, the playmate was restored. Risen the confused boy wept, then ran home, where he waited for his chance to holler and chant, Crucify him! one good Friday in Jerusalem.

24 VOLUME 15

Alan Berecka

SHOPPING FOR MIRACLES: LOURDES 1979

Looking for a cheap souvenir, I browsed the curio shops. Deciding against frisbees stamped with Mary or T-shirts picturing the sainted Bernadette, I opted for a convertible virgin, a plastic bottle with a threaded neck and screw-top head. Pleased with the absurdity of my purchase, I walked to the shrine, past the grotto and its glass-encased stream. I waded through the tides of the sick and dying to a brass tap where I ﬁ lled my Mary to her Adam’s Apple—half hoping the water might cure my bed-bound mother.

Exiting the grounds, I passed bazooka-sized votives and eyed the inﬁ rmed. I noticed that the ill seemed to suffer most from aging. Confused, I began to question our shared faith— Everyone wants to meet Jesus, but nobody wants to die—the old adage come to life. I grew tired to my marrow. I saw a rusted garbage bin and decided to can my plastic queen of heaven, but when I lifted the tin lid, there on top of the trash sat a broken wooden cane.

I returned to the States with a glass ﬂ ask ﬁ lled with holy water which I gave to my mother who accepted the gift with gratitude, although she remained in bed and continued to say the rosary through her pain everyday until she died.

25 W INDHOVER

J. Paul Holcomb

LABOR AS WORSHIP

The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it. —Thomas Merton

When William looked at the chair he mumbled a quiet prayer. His spoken, stuttering words were seldom that clearly heard so he spoke with well-wrought wood. He believed his labor could be his best attempt to pray. It became his Shaker way.

26 VOLUME 15

Jim Davis

GOD COUNTRY

There is nothing in the world, only an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows. —Carl Sandburg

Corn silk, husk and tassels Echo the twinkling wind chime Orchestra’d by far off whispers, The occasional bovine coo Or whinny from the barn, A rabbit rustling in crisp Fall leaves in the thicket, And the violent percussion Of shotguns in the distance, Muted, like the wood wind freight horn.

From his front porch he imagines Thundering buffalo, traversing These vast, inﬁ nite plains. He wishes he could have seen them, Run with them, Broken bread for them.

He drinks the sunset, decides That big yellow ball of ﬂ ame Must weigh one million pounds, And whoever dropped it In the powder red lake of tomorrow Spun with orange smoke and cool mint, Whoever made that deposit Deserves to be called God.

And Sandburg in his wisdom, Seeing beauty in the plains, He must see God too.

27 W INDHOVER

Douglas G. Campbell

TO RETURN

Our day unwrapped itself with accustomed laziness; we stretched slowly as the sun emerged from within the thick tangle of limbs and leaves that formed our bower. We yawned with delicious and particular intention as we lifted our arms skyward and unsheathed our sleeping souls from the darkness and quiet offered to us each night. There was no urgency, no uncertainty in the garden. Monkeys chattered among the branching green vaults above us and squirrels debated among the leafy limbs. We ambled along the slow path which unwound us towards the stream. As we bathed the fi shes darted and played around our feet within the clarity of pure and living water. We drank our fi ll and plucked our favorites from the sagging crop of fruit provided for us without any thought of sweat or toil. Each awakening and each slumbering was full, and generous and we gave it no thought; for every day we were surrounded by fl owers, and fruits and trees of such variety as to bewilder us only with the pleasure of it all. We sipped nectar from fl owers as did the humming birds; we chirruped with the birds who also resided with us;

we stroked the soft and furry creatures and buried our faces within the silkiness of their benevolent embraces. We sought after nothing, strove to gain nothing, for all was there for the taking— enough for every creature. Although we celebrated each day, as we gamboled beneath the sun and stood silently in awe beneath the spread of myriad stars, we were not always fully contented even

28 VOLUME 15 though we wanted for nothing, and could not imagine anything else we might desire. Eventually doubts slithered into our protected lives, twined about our feet and sought to bring us down. Fruit from that tree which was forbidden to us drew us closer with some kind of mysterious and magnetic attraction until we could think of nothing else. Our minds so laden with curiosity ﬁ lled our dreams with richly hued bulbous orbs. We desired so much to savor what we should not taste that when the serpent enticed us closer to those branches drooping with ripened fruit, we lost all remembrance of obedience.

We stuffed our mouths to overﬂ owing with such sweetness; yet we could not satisfy our cravings. Finally, as the sky darkened into night, sticky juices clinging to our skin we bedded down but did not soon give in

to sleep. Our minds raced. Questions without number shredded the calm of night and kept us from our usual bliss. We found that we knew many things, some quite troubling, that were unknown to us before.

Within the light of morning as we unpacked the baggage from our night, we came to see ourselves as naked; we felt this need to hide within clothing. We did our best to wrap ourselves within a tapestry of leaves lest

the gardener, the creator of all, should see our private afﬂ ictions and send us hurtling into some great dungeon of shame and self-loathing. These visions of self- hatred scalded us until we burned all over—great

red blushes spreading like waves across the bodies we had given so little thought to before we gorged ourselves on what we could not ignore, once that serpent—now become a venomous snake—

sunk his seductive, word ﬁ lled barbs into our hearts. We could no longer bear to be seen as we had been made, instead we craved the shadows and searched for dark places where we might hide within the

29 W INDHOVER abyss that now began to stretch out between our future, so laden now with anxious foreboding, and our simple and uncluttered, lustrous past. Next, as we lied to our maker, our creator, our once beloved protector, we felt ourselves slide uncontrollably into hell on earth. Those fearsome cherubim drove us from the sacred grove, but in truth we had already departed once we failed to seek out mercy, to plead for forgiveness. Surely we would have been scooped up into a warm and generous embrace if it had not been for the pride that came with all the knowing with which our minds were now encumbered. We could not bring ourselves to cry out in supplication, for in our greed to know, and then know even more, we had lost that inner knowledge of love that had always sustained us. As soon as our feet crossed that border into the land of self; once the garden was behind us we began to blame the other. I castigated her and she glared back with those rage ﬁ lled eyes stabbing me with such disdain. It was as if the very fabric of our existence had been rent from end to end. This separation spread throughout our lives and even though we might cling to each other in our fear or need, we never again could claim to know each other, or even care to understand each other as we had before we gorged upon that damnable sweetness hidden within a smile of lies. You know the rest (for you have lived it) you know how we struggled and bled and fought each other within that realm of our own making. Yes we had vast knowledge, we were king and queen of our own domain, but it was such a miserly and barren world we had shaped within the toil and turbulence, within our blighted rule.

You live as we did, still separated, still apart, not knowing how genuine love untutored by pride, or greed, or an intimate ﬁ xation on the self can be. And although we weep within our solos, our monologues of pain

30 VOLUME 15 and grief, we can no longer sing in harmony as we once did. Our pathetic attempts to bring true unison to our voices reminds us, when we can tear ourselves away from our mirrors, of this loveless drought. We glimpse within the shards of our brokenness ﬂ ickering fragments of what was, what still could be. And now, after long dissolute lives we cry out to our creator. We know, while impaled still by doubt, that we are loved, and cared for. We, both she and I, know down deep below our aching limbs within the turmoil of our lives, that when we offer to sacriﬁ ce our knowledge completely, that we will be gladly welcomed back, allowed once more to return.

31 W INDHOVER

Sarah Rehfeldt

WHAT THE LIGHT CAN CONJURE

If you ﬁ nd it (and it may ﬁ nd you unexpectedly), hold onto it with your eyes for a very long time. Stretch it out against the evening before it disappears. If you’re lucky, you can watch it go back to where it came from.

32 VOLUME 15

John S. Hancock

I was born on a rainy April morning at the W.C.Tennery Community Hospital in Waxahachie, TX. I have two brothers, Chuck and Theo. We grew up in the country about three miles outside of town. When I was old enough to go off to college I attended Baylor University and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking after that I attended Texas Tech University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree also in printmaking. I have had many different types of jobs in my life now I try to teach art.

33 W INDHOVER

Turnhout, Belgium

34 VOLUME 15

Kasterlee, Belgium

35 W INDHOVER

Ghent, Belgium

36 VOLUME 15

Ghent, Belgium

37 W INDHOVER

Turnhout, Belgium

38 VOLUME 15

Paris, France

39 W INDHOVER

London, England

40 VOLUME 15

Barbara Crooker

REFORMED

Going to Mass with a friend, I kneel when she does, cross myself, try to follow along. To me, it’s all the same God, Buddha, Allah, Yahweh, the one who made the blind see with mud and spit, who created the universe with his breath, who forgives Jerry Fallwell and George Bush, who doesn’t wince when I sing off-key, the sour notes rising like incense, who knows that bread and wine are wheat and grapes, that we with our black hearts cannot become the Body of Christ, but who loves it that we try anyway, our prayers lifting like dust motes in sunlight, or mayﬂ ies on the river, where the ﬁ sh with the rainbow on his side, rises.

41 W INDHOVER

Alan Birkelbach

QUICKENING

I saw him playing in a patch of gray clay down on the riverbank. He had already made a dozen gray birds out of clay: rudimentary things, roly-poly, sticks for legs, wings outlined with a thumbnail.

I would have guessed he was eight, maybe ten, and as focused on his task as if he was reading a comic book. When I came up to him to watch closer he looked up to me with the clearest eyes I have ever seen and said, “It is exactly as you have always suspected: It is all about the form.” He made a few more efforts on his latest shape then sat it down. I saw his lips move, just a few silent words, then one by one he touched the head of each clay bird. Like an exhalation, for each, there was a burst of gray wings, white ﬂ ashing, beaks gasping, then they lifted into the sky, anxious for the air.

The boy smiled, washed his hands in the ﬂ owing water. The strength left my legs. I sat down on the stones. He straightened up, walked over to me, leaned in close.

His breath was like roses. He whispered, “Breathe life into everything. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

He looked up into the sky, once, then turned, and walked down river, disappearing around a bend.

A mockingbird ﬂ ew down to the stones beside me. He tilted one eye up at me and began to sing.

42 VOLUME 15

David Craig

THE THREE COMPANIONS OF ST. FRANCIS

Chapter I His birth, vanity, frivolity and prodigality, how he became generous and charitable to the poor.

Dignity underfoot, he wonked his high-wire way, singing so loudly from stumps, imaginary instruments in horrible French, that everyone who passed just had to watch—him dare himself, paint himself into one spiritual corner after another, until he had no options but severest Truth, in the boisterous rhymes of the troubadours set right, by a grin so local it owns the world.

His father had named him after a country where they knew their fabric, where they valued life’s buckled and measured step as well as its print, insisting on a carafe of friends, ridiculous neighbors—though Pica had wanted the very breath of God: Giovanni!

So Francis learned to trade the prayer the best cloth was for the smiles of new friends. After work, his mates rang in the chorus his money made: a cascade of coins, grace, surrounded as they all were by the cold stones of the only night.

It was all he could give them.

(Was he vain—or just so caught up in his enthusiasms that they’d begun to make their own demands?)

He’d sew rags to more expensive stuffs, embracing again that widow want, knowing he could not, needing to tell everyone that as well. So he became a jongleur, a determined clown, standing in the breech between the sorrowful truth

43 W INDHOVER of this world and the fl eeting faces of his friends. So courteous in manner, speech, even beyond his exaggerated self-conscious parody, everyone knew he could name his own future. He loved to pose, but only because it promised what was, in some way, already here— until a customer’s smirk razed him, brought him down to squalor, to a world beyond his making, to people who had nothing to give but their fl eas. It was that wound again, what he and all his friends felt: an abyss they could not fi ll.

Given this, he wondered where could he live?

Chapter II How he was imprisoned during Assisi’s battle with Perugia and of the two visions he later had, wanting to become a knight.

He camped for his new peers, as if he were that troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn, fresh from the castle’s bread kilns: dancing, skirt lifted on cold stones, singing too loudly to birds out the small window, telling rhymes of fearful Assisian Knights.

Why should he worry? The world was new enough; every morning everywhere mists came, only to be burnt away by the sun, so many new people around by afternoon, no one could’ve guessed.

And so when the weight of the hours began to take the measure of one knight’s need Francis would not back down. He ﬂ anked the man, feinted, sang in bad lange d’oc because he was a merchant’s son: “What do you think will become of me? Rest assured, I will be worshiped throughout the world.”

44 VOLUME 15

Eventually released, a dream would wake him: past the castles it offered, the legions of runic, rubied arms— surpassing even his carefully chosen own, walled ﬁ elds of shields bronzing sunlight.

Chivalry so moved in him the next morning that he gave all his clatter away. Friends laughed, wondered if his stirruped feet were (ever) on the ground. But Francis, for his part, he ﬁ gured, yes, yes, he could give them this; he could give the answer before its time, be its fool, its peacock, anything to help them see.

When asked the reason for his glow, Francis answered largely, as if he were one: “I shall become a great prince.” Why else were dreams given, but to make us princes (and holy fools) before we would become one (preparing him to turn the world upside down)?

He wondered, to what king? And how could he be a knight and wear the holy ribbons of Church too? What of his lady- who-must-be-in-waiting?

The next morning came, and Francis, sitting on a stump, rejoiced, kept these marvelous engines stabled as best he could in his junket heart.

Chapter III How the Lord visited Francis’s heart for the ﬁ rst time ﬁ lling it with marvelous tenderness that gave him strength to begin to progress spiritually in looking down on himself and all vanities, in prayer, almsgiving, and poverty.

A party for the new money, and more, from the very stems of delight: ladies— each of his friends, now enjoying what was left of the tipsy night, some steps in front of him, their misplaced lives, as ever, just out of reach.

45 W INDHOVER

Francis, ever the jester, chose to walk behind, scepter in his hand, dressed as he was, in silks and tatters, knowing by now that rags really were riches, either way: metaphor for the chase, the shell games of wealth and fame; for that, or for the more quiet, obvious need.

But how could he get his friends to know what was real, and missing, what demanded so much?

They came back to him, their captain in mirth elsewhere, looking up, seemingly lost in the glorious conﬂ agration of stars.

Was he contemplating the crimson stomacher?

“Yes, you are right!” he answered. “And I shall take a wife—more noble, wealthy, and beautiful than any you have never seen.” But they didn’t laugh when he said, “Poverty… the one we all chase without knowing it….”

After that day, he never denied an alms to anyone who asked in God’s only name. Heaping his absent father’s table with begged bread, Francis piled his want high in joyful exasperation, (in front of his grieving mother: that the world would, too soon, begin hammering away at his white-hot enthusiasms, bend him— all out of shape).

But Francis was, as ever, elsewhere: pressing his face between Rome’s bars, his last ﬂ ightless bird, bag of coins, high and down onto Peter’s tomb.

And swapping clothes with a beggar, he tried on the life. Yes! Yes! These would help him keep himself in a line, would help him push the world far away, with its trumpets, bandied names! This way he’d never confuse himself again. He’d wake up next to new brothers: lepers, dew on his rags, soiled feet.

46 VOLUME 15

He sang loudly, played ﬁ ddlesticks on the open road, so that the world would be forced to mark him, hold him to what mattered.

Once back, he didn’t share his secret, because he was betrothed to a lady, Poverty, a women hidden in so much beauty that a look from anyone at all would have violated, surely, their ﬁ rst intimate steps.

47 W INDHOVER

Nora M. Olivares

FIRST EXILE (For Julian—D.O.B. November 20, 2002)

The ﬁ rst time I saw you as the little man in the moon swirling in a cloudy galaxy— your own Milky Way.

Then, I imagined you— the silent chiaroscurist pushing water’s boundary with persistent fl esh, fl owing into form, kicking and somersaulting to test your strength for the current— preordained to tilt you towards your exit where you’re disentangled from the line connecting you to that perfect sturdy purse after twelve hours of breathtaking labor, your lips puckered from months of silence, your eyes like Tiresias concealing all visions of your fi rst home collapsed upon arrival.

Now, you are swaddled in love to begin another voyage down the great Amazon of life. You, innocent pioneer, inheritor of genes and pilgrim of dreams will begin to surrender the comfort of silence for the oars of language to raft you towards those shores which best mirror your primal paradise of oneness. This time, you sail in the kinship of exiles.

48 VOLUME 15

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

PETER’S GLIMPSE

And he was transﬁ gured before them, and his face shone like the sun. —St. Matthew 17:2

My understanding young, Lord, my hopes high. The bright light transﬁ gures you before our eyes, and standing amazed seems all that we can do as we watch and wait to recover and reclaim you. No longer strangers, we are your second selves seeing our souls ﬂ ash forth in your light caught up in the magnitude of our delight falling in love with the love light tells.

Now how shall we see where to set our feet as we make our way down the mountain’s dark side, our eyes still dazzled, our knowledge incomplete, neither past nor present a trustworthy guide? How will you light the road we do not know once you have gone the way we have to go?

49 W INDHOVER

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

LAST RITE

Today I spit into my hand and blessed my mother. Traced a salivary cross upon her dry brow. It caught the winter light like chrism on an infant’s new skin. Bliss of my mother’s touch, my origin— this grief a lost daughter’s only gesture. I’ve unlearned how to love that dear body, the arms that held us and the lips that kissed, showed us all how to love all that’s lovely. I’ve taught my heart the ways she won’t be missed, though I know such delusions just delay the truth I hear my traitor tongue say, Forgive the faithless daughter I have been, as I bless my blesséd mother yet again.

50 VOLUME 15

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

THE LONG RUN On My 45th Birthday

I have run along the shores of big rivers— Tiber, Nile, Rhine, Thames, Seine— sucked sweet Mississippi-soaked air into thirsty lungs, and run and run and run, my legs thick as Caravaggio’s saints’, mounting their horses, urging the stirrups, running from soldiers taking the Christ away. My heart a marvel, all those many miles, pumping blood through winding valleys of veins, the creeks and streams feeding my glad ﬂ esh, animal being ignorant of its mystery. Who was she, that girl with the witch-wild mane who ran with the world’s own waters inside her ﬂ ush and full of a love she could not name?

51 W INDHOVER Jacqueline Kolosov

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MY DAUGHTER

Why

“Why do birds sing, Mommy?” “Because they can.” “But why?” “Because God gave them beautiful voices.” “Why?” “So that everyone, including you, could enjoy their song.” “Why?” A monosyllabic question is my two and a half year old daughter’s favorite word at the moment. Not surprising, for toddlers are appetitive creatures of immense curiosity. Why does the moon come out at night? Why does the sun go away? Why do birds sing? All of these questions have answers, but not answers I can articulate simply. How do I explain the movements of the planets? And even if I could explain the architecture of a day bound by sun and moon, the underlying ‘why’ remains. Why does the moon rise? Why? The question itself runs up against the ultimate mystery: why are we here at all? Why derives from the Old English hwi. It feels very natural that the people who gave us Cædmon’s Hymn would also give us why since both depend upon an acknowledgment, indeed an acceptance of mystery. In Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Cædmon is described as one “to whom the gift of poetry was divinely given.” Yet it wasn’t always this way. In his pre-poetry life, Cædmon was without music: “And so it was that sometimes at the table, when the company was set to be merry and had agreed that each man should sing in his course, he, when he saw the harp to be coming near him, would rise up in the midst of supper and going out get him back to his own house.” Until, one night, while trying to escape the music, he goes to the stable and falls asleep. There, a man speaks to him in his dreams. “Cædmon,” the man says, “sing me something.” Initially, Cædmon protests that he cannot sing, but when the man says again, “Sing me something, Cædmon,” he does. Cædmon sings about the creation of the world, and in the process his life as a poet begins. Children are poets, reawakening in us an attentiveness to language that we might otherwise not recover. “What do you get when you mix red and yellow?” my husband Bill asks. “Rellow” is Sophie’s response. “We don’t have tails,” she tells us tonight. “We have tushies.” “Ba, ba, black sheep, have you any wool…” She will sing out the entire piece at the top of her lungs, whether she’s spinning in circles on the front lawn or sitting on the steps in the university kiddie pool.

52 VOLUME 15

“Sing to me, Mommy,” she says every night before I tuck her into bed. Although I am a capable enough poet, like the stable-sheltered Cædmon I am no musician, having actually held a pantomime solo in a junior high musical, a role that led a few teachers and classmates to conclude I must be deaf. But when Sophie asks me to sing, I do not protest, returning instead to the songs my own mother sang to me: “Que sera, sera,” and several lyrics from “The Sound of Music.” With her cheek pressed against my own, we bring the words forth together, so that I begin to feel the notes rising from deep within my body. With the moon coming in through the curtains, I dare to believe ours is a pitch perfect melody.

Hot Pink Sneakers

I call my mom and tell her that Sophie is obsessed with her new sneakers: hot pink suede and white canvas. We bought them at Target on my birthday. “My birthday, Mommy,” she said. In a fi gurative sense it’s true, for we began the day on the bucket swings at the neighborhood park before driving to Target to buy her some new clothes and of course, the sneakers. The only thing we didn’t do was buy her the helium balloons she requested over breakfast. “They’re good running shoes,” my husband said when she showed him the sneakers which she insisted on wearing to bed. Modeling herself after Mommy, the long distance runner, Sophie has begun running, pumping her arms as she follows the gravel path bordering the park across the street from our home. “Come on, Mommy,” she calls out. “Follow me!” She falls less than she did just a few months ago. These days, it’s usually while holding our corgi’s leash and crying, “I’m running with my dog. Look, Mommy, I’m running with my dog.” Seconds later, the dog will lurch forward after a squirrel or a cat, and Sophie will be sprawled on the pavement crying. “Do you want me to hold Eddie’s leash?” I’ll ask after brushing her off. Always, she shakes her head. “I hold Eddie’s leash,” she says fi rmly. Despite the sneakers, the sturdiest shoes in her current ward- robe, she remains a toddler. The word is Scottish in origin and refers to the unsteady steps of a little child. Today we consider children between the ages of one and three years to be toddlers, a two year span defi ned by a child’s learning to walk, talk, and view herself as a separate person. According to the experts, tantrums, that central aspect of the so-called Terrible Twos, are the result of a child testing the boundaries between herself and her world.

53 W INDHOVER

“I don’t like Katherine,” she tells me after I pick her up from her playgroup. “Why?” I ask. “What did she do?” “I don’t like Katherine,” Sophie says again. Unable to extract a concrete answer, I conclude that Sophie is probably jealous of the bond between Katherine and Zoe, who spend most of the week together. “Zoe is my friend,” Sophie once said, ‘my’ and ‘mine’ being critical words in her vocabulary. Sophie may be part of the continent of our family, but she is increasingly becoming a self-defi ned being, a little country who knows what she wants. (Worth mentioning, perhaps is that the word boundary derives from the Latin bonnarium: piece of land with a fi xed limit.) “Bobcat, Mommy,” she will say, insisting I crowd Bobcat into her already crowded bed at night. “And Baby, Mommy, I need Baby.” Almost none of Sophie’s dolls or stuffed animals have names other than the name identifying their species: Bunny, Duck, Bobcat. The exception is Mommy Bear and Baby Bear, a twosome she likes to keep close together. As she likes to keep me close. Until I weaned her last month, I doubt she recognized a clear boundary between her body and my own. “My mommy,” she liked to say. “Mine.” At Target, Sophie immediately identifi ed the hot pink sneakers as ‘mine’. Given the preponderance of pink in her two year old life, I tried to steer her towards another color. “No, Mommy,” she said. “I want pink.” “Well,” a friend said when I told her of our outing, “at least Sophie knows what she wants.” Does she ever. Put another way: Heaven help us. What will she be like at three?

Cactus’s Ankles

This morning Sophie calls Cactus on the toy phone she has brought to the hair salon. “You okay?” she asks in between admiring her newly cropped bangs, having accompanied her dad for his haircut. “Someone try to eat you?” I’m not surprised by the question since I’m the one who told her cactus grow ‘prickles’ in order to prevent other creatures from eating them. Sophie transformed prickles into ankles. “We don’t touch cactus’s ankles,” she said when we came close enough to see the spines on a well-established prickly pear. Toddlers like repetition, constants. This is the reason she eats macaroni and cheese at least every other day; and this is also the reason we began visiting cacti this summer, seeking them out on our evening bicycle rides. Within a ten block radius we quickly located colonies of prickly pear and agave, as well as rarer cholla and aloe plants. “That agave’s hiding, Mommy,” Sophie told me once, pointing to a two foot plant sheltered by a nest of Pampas Grass. “Sshh, Mommy,” she said the next time we passed it. “Agave’s sleeping.”

54 VOLUME 15

Although I walked the neighborhood streets for several years before Sophie’s birth, often fi nding something new—from a chande- lier within a quixotic pergola to a sweet pea vine threading a street lamp—it is Sophie who taught me to personify the landscape. “Yes, we can visit Stump on our way home,” I will often reply as we pedal back from the grocery store. “Poor Stump,” Sophie said once, wrap- ping her arms around the three foot remains of a species of tree I can no longer identify, so weathered by sun and rain and wind has it become. “We don’t touch Cactus’s ankles,” she says again this afternoon, this time to her friend Zoe who lives down the street from the hug- est prickly pear colony around, one that stretches the length of the house. Intrigued by her certainty that cactus has ankles, I check the etymology and discover that Tarsos is the Greek for ankle. It comes from the Greek teresesthai: to be or become dry. The actual word for the cactus’s prickles is spine from the Old French espine, meaning backbone or thorn, also prickle. Without being conscious of doing so, my daughter has intuited a relationship between cactus and ankle and spine. Ankle is a very human word, as is spine, the offi cial word for the cactus’s prickles. Perhaps it is natural, then, Sophie’s conversations with Cactus, for always it is the singular Cactus she is calling, though I’m not sure if it’s the colony on Twenty-second Street or the smaller plant a few blocks away that shelters the fl ame-tipped salvia. “You okay, Cactus?” Sophie says again later. “Don’t let anybody eat you.”

Play

People who laugh live longer. That’s what the experts say. I laugh more since Sophie has come into my life. And who wouldn’t laugh at a two-year-old admiring her belly in the mirror after she takes a break from naked yoga on her purple mat. Like a lot of toddlers, she likes to strip down to the skin. Who can blame her? She spends 99% of the time in a diaper. No matter the cotton lining, plastic just doesn’t breathe, and of course there’s the tape. But I don’t always laugh. Sometimes, despite all the childcare books that stress calm and control, I lose it. I stand there and scream, and on occasion I’ve burst into tears. I’m learning that the only way to avoid meltdown with a toddler is by taking experience in stride. Take my birthday outing to Target. Within an hour, I’ve chased Sophie down multiple times. Finally, in order to keep her still, I ﬁ nd myself pushing her around the store in a display stroller that cannot accommodate our purchases. I’ve injured the tendon in my right hand, so I’m trying to steer with the left. It isn’t easy. By the time we arrive at the checkout counter, I smell a poop diaper.

55 W INDHOVER

Outside, it’s ninety-nine degrees and the car has been sitting in the lot for over an hour. Waiting until we arrive home is therefore not an option. “Where’s the ladies room?” I ask the cashier. It is only once I’ve laid Sophie on paper towel on the changing table I realize I have wipes but not a diaper. The diaper is in the car. Sophie emptied out the contents of my backpack en route to the store. After wiping her off, I carry her, bare bottom and all, to the children’s section. “Walk, Mommy,” she protests. “I walk.” “Not now, Sophie,” I say. “I have to get you into a diaper.” I grab the Pampers and hurry over to the boys department, which is carpeted. There, I lay her down and get her into a diaper in record time, thanks to her compliance. Meaning: she doesn’t kick or roll over. At Toys ‘R’ Us earlier this summer, I didn’t smell the poop diaper until it had smeared onto my dress and completely soiled her own shorts. Not only did I have to change her in the store that day, but I had to buy her a new outfi t. “Well,” a friend said philosophically, “at least you were in the right place. Diapers, twenty-four-month-old wear and a spacious changing room all right there.” Right. So I’m learning to laugh more, a good thing for a writer predisposed to the work of Paul Celan, Anna Akmatova, Virginia Woolf, and the Brontes. I’m learning, day by day, though those boundary-testing tantrums—for which the etymology remains intriguingly unclear—remain the biggest challenge. The biggest of the big was the episode in the locker room at the pool last week. Sophie was in the midst of her fi rst solo shower using the hand-held nozzle, and she had soaked the tile fl oor just beyond. “Time to come out now,” I said. “No.” “Two more minutes, Sophie.” What I always forget is that for toddlers time is not a working concept. I wound up pulling her out kicking and screaming. I had just managed to lay Sophie on the changing table when she kicked me and pulled my hair, while spitting out a slew of swear words that blended the choicest bits of Bill’s and my own worst vocabulary. Everyone knows locker rooms have great acoustics. Suffi ce it to say, all of the other women and children heard Sophie’s outpouring. “What did you do?” a friend asked later. “Held her hands down so I could dress her while telling her, very calmly, not to kick and pull hair and say ‘naughty’ words.” “You should have given her a time out.” “Yeah?” I stared back at her. “Where?” On the slippery tile fl oor? In a shower stall? On the toilet? (She might have fallen in.) “So what did you do, Jackie?” my mom asked once I recounted the episode. “What else?” I said. “I laughed.”

56 VOLUME 15

Elizabeth Bruce

WATCHING OVER PINK PEAS

Ryan O’Sullivan was ten when his sister, Beth, was born, and he thought that her toes looked like tiny pink peas. He had been watching out for those toes ever since. He taught her to ride her tricycle. When she joined the softball team in the third grade, Ryan practiced with her in the front yard, and after the neighborhood bully pushed Beth off her bicycle, Ryan beat him up. Every Saturday Ryan helped his dad in the yard while Beth followed their mother, cooking, cleaning, and shopping. In the evenings, they all ate dinner together in the kitchen. Their family was as close to a Norman Rockwell picture as you could get—until the accident. Beth was fi fteen when the car crash took their parents, and Ryan moved from his downtown loft back to the house. It was a post-WWII bungalow with a wrap-around porch. The houses on their street declined in the 70s and 80s, and then were rediscovered in the 90s because of the prime location near downtown Dallas. Many of the homes were bought as tear-downs, and the house across the street was a new construction, a fl eshy-colored stucco with a glass turret in front where the circular staircase led to the second fl oor. Ryan didn’t want to tear down their house. He didn’t want anything to change. He didn’t want to move out the memories, but then Beth heard the voices. Ryan fi gured Beth didn’t hear audible voices. They must be in her head, telling her what to do. When she was maybe a year old, Ryan would go into her room with their mother to wake Beth up in the mornings. After watching her sleep for a minute, Ryan would tickle her toes and Mom would say, “Good morning, princess.” Beth would smile before her eyes ever opened. Now he fi gured Beth heard Mom’s voice just the same, but it came with a directive for the morning like, “Beth, honey, you need to fi x breakfast for your brother this morning,” or “Beth, you have to do the wash today.” Ryan knew about the voices the day of the funeral. He looked for Beth around the backyard where people were eating food off of paper plates. Ryan had been making the rounds, accepting condolences, when he was suddenly overwhelmed by an uneasy need to know where Beth was. He went up the steps to the back-door, stopping to shake the minister’s hand and thank him for his comforting words. Beth was in the kitchen, standing at the table, emptying food from a casserole dish into Tupperware. Scraped platters and casserole dishes were stacked beside her.

57 W INDHOVER

“Beth, what are you doing? You don’t have to do this. I can take care of the kitchen stuff later,” he said. “I have to wash these so people can take their dishes home now, and we won’t have to return them later,” Beth answered. “Beth, it’s okay. Leave it until later. I’ll return the dishes if you don’t want to,” Ryan said. “Mama told me to do it. And Dad wants you to take out that trash,” Beth said, pointing with a macaroni encrusted utility spoon to a large, black plastic bag in the corner. Ryan walked over to his sister and, with his hands on her shoulders, turned her around to face him. Her blue eyes, brighter than usual because of the tears prickling at the corners, mirrored his own. Both siblings had the same dark brown, wavy hair, hers long and falling down over the sides of her ivory face, and his short and spiked up with gel. At 6’3, he would always be taller than his sister, and she would never seem full-grown to him. Ryan bent over and put his arms around her, trying to protect her from the pain and fear, trying to hold her so close that all she felt was how much he loved her. Beth began to cry, but then she took a deep breath. Ryan waited for her to exhale, but he only felt her stiffen. Worried she had stopped breathing, Ryan let her go and stepped back to look at his sister. She just stood there, staring at him. She hadn’t cried since the accident, but now tears ran down her soft, pink cheeks. She didn’t make a sound, didn’t scrunch up her face or open her mouth. She just stood there as tears rolled over each other in a race down her cheeks and dripped onto her blouse. Ryan hugged her again, longer this time. Beth never made a sound, never shook with sobs, but when Ryan pulled back, his shirt was wet with her tears, and he saw that her nose was running. She ripped off a paper towel from the holder hanging under the cabinet. Looking out the window over the kitchen sink, she blew her nose and said, “Ryan, Dad says it’s rude to ignore our guests. Mom says I should ﬁ nish these dishes, and you should go see if anyone needs anything.” Ryan was scared. Bile burned up from his stomach and into his throat, forcing him to focus on his own body. He watched Beth put ham slices from a large platter into a Ziploc bag and wash the platter like he had seen her do with Mom after Sunday dinners. Ryan went along with the voices. They seemed to give a kind of order to Beth’s life. She was up every morning, busy with whatever instructions she had from their mother for the day. Beth put in a load of wash in the morning before school and cooked dinner every night because “Mom said to.” Beth kept a grocery list, adding a can of tomatoes when they used one or light bulbs when they were almost out, just as their mother had done. When Ryan needed to mow the lawn or trim the hedges, Beth reminded him, “Dad says the hedges

58 VOLUME 15 need trimming, Ryan.” He took Beth to school before work, and she rode the bus home. She did her homework and started dinner. Ryan came home just after ﬁ ve o’clock. When he asked what was for dinner, Beth would answer, “Mom says to use up the chicken in the freezer.” Their life together resembled their lives before the accident—except that Beth wanted to be home all the time—where the voices were. The next spring, Beth refused to go to softball practice, and when school was out for the summer, she didn’t go to the mall with her friends or to their houses to sunbathe by their pools. Her junior year was coming up, and she wouldn’t talk to Ryan about which colleges she wanted to go to. He thought about getting counseling for her, but it hadn’t quite been a year since the accident. Beth just needed a little more time to adjust. She would be okay. Their lives weren’t so bad. It was almost as if everything was the same as it always had been. Ryan liked it that way. What would a counselor do, anyway, except make her hurt and cry? As they ate dinner together, Beth told him about her day. “Mindy Truluck has been nominated for homecoming queen. She and Andy Simpson are sleeping together. Dad says Mindy may be homecoming queen, but she’s ruining her life.” Ryan didn’t know how to get into a discussion about sex with his little sister. At sixteen, it wasn’t like she needed to be taught about the birds and the bees, and it looked like she knew indiscriminate sex had potential consequences. Pushing a forkful of mashed potatoes into his peas, he asked, “Are you going to the homecoming dance?” “I don’t know yet. No one has asked me, but some of the girls are going without dates. Dad says dances are places where girls like Mindy get into trouble,” Beth said. Ryan’s fork stopped midway to his mouth, and three peas fell back onto his plate. Dad had never discouraged Beth or Ryan from enjoying school activities. Ryan looked across the table at Beth as she cut a piece of chicken-fried steak. He realized how comfortable he had become with the voices. Almost everything Beth said began with, “Mom says,” or “Dad says.” The voices hadn’t been in the way. But Dad saying dances caused girls to get into trouble was not right. Ryan realized that the voices were changing. They weren’t just or- dering her life. Now they were closing her off from the world. This wasn’t Dad. There was something wrong with his sister. While Beth did the dishes, Ryan sat on the front porch step. He could hear hammering down the street—another new construction going up. He looked at the house across the street and watched the two children who lived there race each other up the staircase in the glass turret. When he and Beth were kids, they never played together because he was so much older, but he had watched her grow

59 W INDHOVER up. He had protected her. He didn’t want to change her world. He didn’t want his world to change, either, but he was letting her down. That’s when Ryan decided to paint the house, and he started in the kitchen. The next Friday night after work, he stopped at the hardware store and bought blue paint, rollers, and brushes. After dinner, Ryan brought old sheets from the garage to put on the fl oor. He brought the ladder in and set it up in the corner between the kitchen table and the large picture window that overlooked the backyard. Dipping a roller in the paint tray, he climbed the ladder and began painting over the yellow wall. Beth came in from the utility room with a basket of laundry. “Ryan, what are you doing?” “I thought we’d try to update the kitchen a little. I’m going to paint it, and we are going to change out those avocado green appli- ances.” He heard the laundry basket hit the fl oor. After he fi nished painting the section he’d started, he turned around. The laundry basket was on the fl oor, but Beth was gone. Ryan had the same feeling he had the day of the funeral, that fear that crawled up from under his stomach and crept over his organs through his throat and into his brain. His feet seemed huge and heavy as he tried to hurry down the ladder, making sure to fi nd each step with the ball of his foot. Halfway down, he called, “Beth?” There was no answer. Ryan ran straight to Beth’s room. She was there, sitting on the padded window seat, her feet curled underneath her, one arm across her stomach, and the other propped on the windowsill. The side of her head leaned against the windowpane. Her face was blank. Ryan walked over to the window, “Beth, I didn’t know you would get so upset.” “They’re gone,” she said. “Who’s gone?” Ryan asked. “You know,” Beth answered, and she didn’t speak again all day. She didn’t speak the next day either. Ryan heard her in the shower that morning, so he knew at least she had left the window seat. After giving her time to dress, Ryan checked on her. She was wearing her white robe with the little pink rosebuds, and she was sitting at the window seat in the exact position she’d been in the night before. “You want something to eat?” Ryan asked. No answer. No expression on her face. Nothing. “Beth, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. We don’t have to paint the kitchen. We can leave everything just as it was.” Ryan checked on her throughout the day. She stayed the same, except to change position occasionally from the right side of the window seat to the left.

60 VOLUME 15

The next morning Ryan put the ladder and sheets back in the garage. Then he went into the kitchen. Beth had to eat, and he wanted to do something to help her. He made her favorite breakfast, French toast. He got out their mother’s favorite china and arranged everything on a tray. When he came into her room, she was still sitting on the window seat. He set the tray on her bed and sat beside her. “Beth, you have to eat something.” Beth just stared out the window. Ryan followed her gaze. The man across the street was weed whacking, and his son was pushing the mower. As Ryan watched the man watching his son, he felt that old fear rise up from his gut and into his chest. It was his fault. He’d let her coast with the voices for too long. He’d let her settle into Mother’s life, and he took over Dad’s. By the time the fear reached his brain, it turned into anger. “That’s it, Beth. You talk to me, or you’re talking to a doctor.” Ryan jumped up from the window seat and stomped out of the room. Then the crying started. Beth cried the whole day. Ryan found all the Kleenex in the house, and when she’d used those, he brought her rolls of toilet paper. She cried for nine hours straight. He didn’t know how anyone could cry so long. He felt a desperate kind of emptiness inside, and it hurt so bad that he thought the pain might make his heart explode. For the ﬁ rst time, he couldn’t watch over Beth while she slept, couldn’t beat anyone up, and couldn’t help her get better. When she was down to the last roll of toilet paper, Ryan said, “Beth, I’m going to run to the store for more Kleenex.” She tried to say something through her sobs, but Ryan couldn’t understand her. He sat down next to her. “I can’t understand you, Beth. You are going to have to stop crying.” She pulled off the last few feet of toilet paper and blew her nose. “The kitchen,” Beth hiccupped. “We don’t have to paint the kitchen, Beth,” Ryan said. “No.” She hiccupped again. “I don’t want to paint the kitchen blue,” she said. “I like pink.” Ryan smiled, “Okay.” He picked up the empty toilet paper rolls. “You want the paper towels now?”

61 W INDHOVER

Joseph A. Parente

ST. GRETA

St. Greta appeared at Our Lady of the Glorious Ascension Church through totally fortuitous circumstances, leaving one local family, the Palacios to be speciﬁ c, to make do with a much more mundane “Aglio e Oglio” spaghetti dinner, not the more exotic, semi-obligatory, Sunday chicken cacciatore.

St. Greta was a chicken…literally; a crafty “Mediterranean” breed endowed with superior powers of self-preservation. Mr. Benito—the local “Chicken Master”—was about to fi ll Mrs. Palacio’s customary order that Sunday morning but made the mistake of failing to note St. Greta lurking nearby amidst fl ailing wings, fl uttering feather bits and piercing cackles before reaching into the wooden crate to snatch up the Palacios’ afternoon feast. St. Greta (that was not her name yet) quickly seized the moment and vigorously chomped down on the sensitive inside of Mr. Benito’s bare forearm, tearing out a cricket-sized chunk of her captor’s fl esh. “Yeow! Pollo stupido!” he screamed in pain as the crate door fl ew open and she and a dozen other frantic chickens surged out around him, creating a colossal ruckus. St. Greta was the only escapee with enough presence of chicken-mind to bolt for the polleria’s slightly ajar front door. She headed left and scampered full tilt down 26th Street, fl apping and clucking riotously, leaving a scant trail of white fl uff, till she arrived at the Church where she made a hard right turn and fl ew as best a chicken could up the thirteen concrete steps to the welcoming heart of Father DiPatria who, moments before, had opened the ponderous Church doors for the 10:30 a.m. Mass.

Father DiPatria instantly fell in love with this white-as-pristine- snow apparition, having had a treasured pet chicken just like her as a boy on a small farm outside of Pisa. Giorgio DiPatria was a dedicated priest, but deep in his soul there remained the devoted son of a calloused-hand, stoop-shouldered, life-long worker of the land.

God had graced Father with a green thumb, and an even greener brain possessed of an innate ability to grow just about anything in his mini-Babylonian empire behind the Church sacristy. His garden was laid out in geometrically precise rows, the plants and vegetables, which he tended obsessively and lovingly, lay in raised mounds of dark, richly composted soil, the pathways layered with scatterings of straw and mulch to discourage weeds. Father was

62 VOLUME 15 able to grow some obscure varieties of ﬂ owers back there that only prospered elsewhere in the remote hills of Paraguay. His eggplants were the size and perfect blue/black color of bowling balls fresh off a Brunswick assembly line. The priest could plant a feather in late autumn and have a muster of peacocks popping up at springtime.

Mr. Benito had followed the chicken-feather trail in hot pursuit of his escapee as fast as his own skinny legs could carry his huge protruding pot belly. The truncated shadow of the proﬁ le he cast in the early rising sun resembled a Centaur wheelbarrow.

“Santuario! Santuario! Il pollo ha santuario nella mia Chiesa!” (The chicken has Sanctuary in my Church!) Father yelled, physically blocking Mr. Benito from entering the vestibule to recapture his errant prey. St. Greta had cunningly taken refuge amidst the posterior folds of Father’s long black robe and repeatedly poked her pure white head out to mock Mr. Benito who by now was fuming. You could practically hear her taunting him: “Bring it on, belly boy!”

“Lei-e-mio!” (She-is-mine!), the “Chicken Master” shouted between tightly clenched molars. But Father was not budging. “Basta! Non lei tocci!” (Loose translation: “Enough! If you touch her I’ll wring your miserable neck like you do with those other innocent chickens!”), Father yelled so fi ercely that Mr. Benito, realizing there was more going on here than an AWOL chicken, stopped dead in his tracks and gingerly backtracked down the Church steps. “Pazzo sacerdote” (loony priest) he blurted over his shoulder at about the same instant the back of Father’s fi ngertips slid up from his Adam’s apple and fl icked off the edge of his grey-stubble chin.

And so exactly one minute and forty three seconds after her arrival, the self-liberated chicken was canonized by Father DiPatria as “St. Greta.” And she arrived to signiﬁ cantly more baggage than her tiny chicken brain could comprehend. He had named her Greta after his childhood sweetheart, the one true love of his life, who, also unmarried and childless, now ran a small children’s nursery school somewhere in the northern reaches of Puglia. Both were deeply nurturing souls, he with his plants, she with other people’s offspring.

Their parents’ small farms lay adjacent to each other along the border of Piemonte and Lombardia. Giorgio’s family grew a modest assortment of crops for their own consumption and for sale; Greta’s tended limited batches of livestock and more than a few chickens that provided eggs, as well as more chickens. Between the two families’ bartering, long days at market, and ceaseless backbreaking labor

63 W INDHOVER they lived precariously close to the bone but remained relatively self-sufﬁ cient.

The two children would giggle shyly at each other through the rails of the weather-battered split-rail fence that acted as a perfunctory division between the farms, then secretly admired one another over the fence as they each sprouted taller, she a bit more precociously than he. One bright azure morning when they were about 10 and 9 respectively, Giorgio had gathered a diligently selected collection of wildﬂ owers, and Greta had purloined a baby chick from a recent brood, their faces ﬂ ushed in anticipation as they approached their usual meeting spot at the fence where they exchanged their precious gifts, and, on this warm, sun-drenched Lombardia morning, their hearts.

And so it remained, even now across the years and the ocean, with him naming this silly chicken, not Greta, but Saint Greta, and her spinning tall tales at story time of Giorgio the magic farmer who could grow sunﬂ owers as high as the clouds and peppers big- ger than houses.

Father ushered St. Greta down the Church aisle, through the Sacristy and out into his garden wonderland where she quickly realized she had almost died but had gone to Heaven. St. Greta quickly settled in as self-appointed guardian angel of Father’s ﬂ o- ral and vegetal domain and became his best friend on whom she imprinted and subsequently followed just about everywhere. Once in a while, in Father’s confessional on a quiet Saturday afternoon, one could hear a mufﬂ ed cackle which he quickly tried to mask with an unconvincing cough.

St. Greta also had full run of the Rectory, even sleeping in Father’s bed, perched most uncomfortably for both of them, atop Father’s compost-smelling feet. They could be seen through the open doorway, Father DiPatria asleep on his back, stiff as a mummy, wearing that facial expression people get when their sixty-pound Black Lab nods off across their legs and both feet fall asleep but they sit there in agony, immobile so as not to disturb the dog. The chicken/priest pair looked ridiculous…and very sweet.

Father doted shamelessly on St. Greta, even concocting his own special chicken feed mixture of corn, parsley, a dash of oregano (he swore she was of genteel Italian heritage), eggshells (yes, we all found it cringingly cannibalistic), and some repulsive mashed bug concoction. This accidental pair, rescuer and rescued, spent many

64 VOLUME 15 tranquil days enriching each other’s lives through more than a few planting and harvesting seasons in the plot behind the rectory, he assuring vegetal provisions for the rectory and highly unwelcome supplies of beets for the school cafeteria, she maintaining an ap- propriate balance of tick and other bug populations.

And so it went…until, alas, one early Tuesday morning Father strolled out into his little tract of paradise and St. Greta did not follow him, except with her beady, adoring eyes, well the eye closest to him. She wilted slowly in the weeks that followed, like a daffodil in early June, then began failing more rapidly until she took her ﬁ nal leave of Father’s empire and his companionship forever for another grander piece of acreage. He never really understood why she died. “God knows what she endured at that cursed polleria,” he mut- tered, in Italian.

As personally wrenching as it was, Father DiPatria presided over what was probably among the most ornate, if not impious, Christian burials of a chicken, ever. The intricately orchestrated ceremony provided Angelo, the choir baritone, with the opportunity to ﬂ aunt his stellar a Capella version of “Ave Maria” and the more pedestrian but obligatory “Amazing Grace.” Pastor Marino, whose heart also embraced all creatures offered up some specially edited prayers for the deceased. “O God, grant that the souls of thy servants, thy handmaidens, and thy faithfully departed…uh, thy faithfully departed chickens may be numbered among the redeemed,” he prayed without a hint of irony. My friend, Joey Mangetti and I functioned as supportive altar boys doing, well, the digging, then the reﬁ lling. A full complement of the School’s nuns was in respectful even if requisite, attendance, including Sister Virgil the school cook, who had quietly expressed severe reservations about the appropriateness of all this and, I sensed, entertained certain unseemly culinary ruminations involving extra virgin olive oil and paprika.

And so, St. Greta departed from her fl ock of humans, leaving Father DiPatria to retreat into his fl ora sanctuary, trying unsuccess- fully to fi ll the aching void in his heart, and handing out excessive penances to every unfortunate penitent who visited his confessional, unaware of his grief.

Approximately ten days after the tender farewell to St. Greta an article in the local paper reported some vandalism at the “Chicken Master’s” polleria.

65 W INDHOVER

“No money or valuables were taken from the shop, but the wooden crates which lined three walls had all been emptied, leaving the formerly-doomed chickens free to ﬂ ee out the open back door and scatter about the immediate neighborhood, which they gleefully did.”

And in Father DiPatria’s confessional that same Saturday my scrupulously detailed list of recurring petty sins was, I’m almost positive, interrupted by a mufﬂ ed cackle, and an unconvincing cough.

66 VOLUME 15

Johanna Mueller

Our society subscribes to a loss of myth, forgotten rituals, and provides little thought to the understanding about the creatures with which we share the earth. In this body of work I have created a personal magical belief system to invigorate my own sense of myth, ritual and humanness. Images that began as personal narratives or animal self-portraits have morphed into totemic representations of the animal. The animal and certain symbols are elevated to mythic status as they are assigned attributes of human emotions. My own myth streams from the eyes and mouths of these animals, and yet they seek to accept the translation of the myth present in the viewer. Through the creation of each element, be it print, painting, artist book, drawing or sculpture, I invigorate the memory of shared experience and importance of narrative. The viewer is constantly forced to recognize and re-recognize each animal and what it stands for, both in the meaning I have given it and in the meaning they bestow upon it. This practice engages the viewer and produces a visceral reaction playing upon the totemic signiﬁ cance of the animal.

67 W INDHOVER

Lioness Enlightened

68 VOLUME 15

War

69 W INDHOVER

Boost

70 VOLUME 15

Jewels

71 W INDHOVER

Holy Cow

72 VOLUME 15

Vessel

73 W INDHOVER

Carnivore

74 VOLUME 15

Hannah Heath Johnson

OCTOBER

Amber watched the mist rolling off the Little Red River and thought about Uganda. She could not envision the town they would move to, had purposefully not studied the pictures. Instead, she thought about the time difference, how she would be falling asleep in Africa just as the sun spilled over the farmlands of east Arkan- sas. She also thought about the fl ight, wondered how long, exactly, it would take her to get from the airport in Kampala to the gravel road leading into Collins Cemetery a few miles outside of Augusta. A world away, she told herself. We are moving a world away. She knew Charlie was thinking about Uganda, too. Now, Uganda was all he ever thought about. Everything else was a pretext to talk about this unknown country where they would serve as missionaries. Amber watched Charlie as he stood amidst the fog, the outline of his sweatshirt making his slim frame look larger than it was. The mist fl oated in formless wisps around him, and his fi gure emerged sharply at times only to disappear back into the fog. Within the hour, she knew, the sun would be out fully, and the steam would clear the water. By that time, other fi shermen would dot the water’s edge, but for now, Charlie had the river to himself. This was Amber’s favorite part of the day. As she watched Charlie, blurry and indeterminate against the overpowering haze, she could imagine him to be anyone. Since Ellie died, they had come to the river every Tuesday morning in the fall. The church gave Charlie Tuesday off since he preached on Sunday, and every week Amber got up with him before dawn for the hour’s drive to Heber Springs. Charlie had to get out of Augusta, he said. It made him crazy to go more than a week without leaving town. Ellie’s death had stirred a deep restlessness within him. He had never been a restless man. It was worse in the fall, when the leaves struck the exact shade of golden rust that had colored the trees that October morning when they found her lifeless. Amber had accused Charlie of wanting to go to Uganda just to get out of town, just to leave their old life behind, but she knew it was an unfair accusation. He believed he was called by God. She didn’t doubt his sincerity. That morning, as they drove from the fl atlands near home toward the curvy roads leading into Heber Springs, Amber pretended to be asleep when Charlie asked her if she was excited about their interview. They were scheduled for the fi nal round of application with the Foreign Mission Board after a year-long process and two levels of interviews. This weekend would be the fi nal cut. If Charlie

75 W INDHOVER and Amber were approved, they would leave for Uganda in less than three months, beginning service as career missionaries. Charlie waved at Amber to join him in the river. He waded in water that reached his mid-calf, but Amber couldn’t stand the cold. She stood behind him on the rocks, barely letting her toes touch the water. Still facing forward, Charlie spoke, but his words drifted into the wind. “I can’t hear you,” Amber told him, looking at his thick curls of black hair. He was aging better than she was, she suspected. His hair was dark and full, and his slender body did not look very different than it had when they married. Amber’s freckles were darkening and spreading from years in the hot Arkansas sun, and three babies had left her hips wide and full. “This might be our last fall in Arkansas,” Charlie repeated. “I can’t hear you,” Amber said again, splashing her toes in the river and watching the spray of water splash up and then lose itself back into the current. Before Ellie died, Amber had taken comfort in the constancy of the river. The river was always there, always ﬂ owing. Now, she resented it, envied it, even; its certainty was deceptive, she knew.

On the ride home, Amber waited for Charlie to mention the interview again. She was ready to answer him, ready to tell him that she didn’t want to go, though she wasn’t ready to tell him why. She wasn’t sure herself. He said nothing about Uganda, and they rode in silence. Before Ellie died, silence rarely nestled its way between them. Now, Amber spoke less often, ﬁ nding fewer things worth com- menting upon. She watched out the window as neat rows of ﬁ elds passed her by. The wind carried a stray piece of ash onto the wind- shield, and it crumbled as it struck the glass. In late autumn, after the burning of the wheat, pieces of ash danced on the wind all across town. Ellie had taught her little brothers to chase the falling black ashes, trying to pluck them from the air. The ashes disintegrated when they were touched, dissolving softly to the ground as if they were never really there. The kids loved the elusive chase, shrieking in delight. Amber smiled as she thought of the three of them playing in the easy summer twilight, but she felt no joy. Charlie slowed down as he neared the cemetery. “Do you want to stop?” he asked. “Just for a few minutes?” Sometimes they stopped at the cemetery on their way home on Tuesdays, though Amber preferred to come alone. Gravel churned as Charlie drove the familiar path to Ellie’s grave. They stood beside each other and stared down at their daughter’s tombstone. The grass over the grave was thick and full, the grave not distinguishable from any of the other hundred graves, even ones that had held their place

76 VOLUME 15 in the cemetery decades before Ellie’s birth. Amber sat down near the tombstone, as she always did, while Charlie remained standing. “I don’t think I can leave her,” she told him. “What do you mean?” “If we go to Uganda, I can’t come visit her. I don’t think I can do it, Charlie.” He didn’t answer for several minutes. They’d had similar conversations before. Every conversation they had now, really, was somehow about Ellie. “There’s nothing you can do for her now. She’s not really here. You know that. You can’t stay in Augusta your whole life.” “I don’t want her grave to be dirty and unkept. Look at that one, over there, you can’t even see the tombstone. I don’t want that to happen to Ellie’s.” “You know people at the church will take care of it. Dana, Eliza- beth, they’ll be out here every week sweeping it and bringing her fl owers. They already are. They loved her, too.” In truth, Charlie had no idea how often Amber visited Ellie’s grave. Some days, when she dropped her other two kids off at school, Amber spent an entire day at the cemetery. She wasn’t upset when she was there, and she could think about things besides Ellie. But when she wasn’t there, sometimes Amber felt an overwhelming dread pressing upon her that her daughter was trapped beneath the ground and her mother wasn’t with her. Amber had gotten out of line at the grocery store once and driven straight to the cemetery, leaving her buggy of cereal and bread and snacks for Corey and David’s lunches in the middle of the line. When it hit her, the need to be physically near Ellie, she almost couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know what she would do in Africa. “I’m just saying, Charlie, I really don’t know if I can do it.” “Ellie’s with Jesus, Amber. Sitting beside her grave isn’t going to help her. Think about the children over there, how much you can help them. They need you more than Ellie does now.” “I am Ellie’s mother.” Amber didn’t fi nish the thought—that the children of Uganda were not her children. Charlie would tell her they were God’s children. She knew he was baffl ed by her reluctance. Charlie took off his Razorbacks sweatshirt and wiped Ellie’s tombstone with the gray fl eece inside his shirt. “We need to get her some more fl owers out here,” he said. “Something colorful.” “We will.” “We need to go now, though. It’s almost time to get the boys.” “I’m not ready to leave yet. You go get them. You can come back and get me later.” With the exception of Uganda, Charlie never argued with Am- ber about anything involving Ellie. He left, and once he was gone,

77 W INDHOVER

Amber took off her shoes and curled onto her side, laying her face against the cool green grass. She never talked to Ellie when she was here. Amber often saw people standing next to unresponsive graves, pouring their hearts out, but she had never said a word to her daughter. She knew Ellie was not really here. It was a comfort, though, to be near a physical proof of her life. Sometimes, when Amber and Charlie and the boys went out to eat or played spades at the kitchen table, it was as if Ellie had never really existed. Amber liked proving to herself that Ellie was real. When they ﬁ rst started coming to the grave, Charlie would pray aloud. He would quote scripture and beg God to give their family strength and peace. One day in their early grief, as Charlie lay face down on the grave and sobbed and begged Jesus to comfort the family’s spirits, Amber had screamed at him to be quiet. Stopitsto- pitstopit, she had yelled, unable to control herself, unsure why the sound of his prayers so infuriated her. That was the last day they brought David and Corey to the grave with them. Charlie brought them sometimes, just the three of them, but they had never come again as a family.

On the morning of the interview, Amber woke up nervous. She straightened her hair carefully and smiled at herself in the mirror, wondering what the FMB committee would think of her. She knew what the committee was looking for, and she knew Charlie was a perfect fi t. At one time, she would have been, too. When she and Charlie fi rst got married, they had talked about becoming missionaries, daydreaming about life in a foreign country, an adventure driven by divine purpose. They prayed about it for a year and fi nally decided to wait. Charlie wasn’t ready to leave the small church he was pastoring in August . They need us here, he had said. Two years ago, when Charlie came to her and told her he was ready to apply with the FMB, Amber was stunned. He asked her to pray about it, and six months later when he asked her what she thought, she was embarrassed to tell him she hadn’t thought about it at all. “What about the boys?” she’d asked him. “They’re too little to do something like that. It could be dangerous. They’ll grow up far away from family.” “God will take care of them,” Charlie had told her. “They’re His, too.” “He didn’t take care of Ellie,” she had replied. In fact, it seemed God had done the opposite of take care of El- lie. As they waited, dumbfounded, for the autopsy report after the bizarre morning they found her still and blue, Amber had imagined

78 VOLUME 15 every possible scenario, and in every one, God was vengeful, ruth- less. She imagined God sending a venomous spider to crawl into her unsuspecting child’s warm bed. She imagined that Ellie had suffocated somehow, trapping her face into her covers as Amber had feared she would do when she was a tiny baby. She had not guessed it was an aneurism, had trouble understanding it for several days. When God created Ellie, it seemed he had left one tiny vessel in her brain weak and narrow, and after eight years the weak spot ballooned and burst, and Amber’s little girl was dead. Amber had answered questions about Ellie’s death in the IMB’s application packets. Charlie joked that the agency’s background check was as thorough as the FBI’s. They had to know they were sending solid men and women of the faith. They asked everything; nothing was off limits. Amber had written essays about her relationship with Jesus. She had answered questions about theology and salvation. She knew all the right answers. Amber wrote about how Jesus had sustained her through the darkest days of her life, as her eight-year-old daughter lay in a morgue down the street. At one time, her answers had been true. But Amber refrained from telling the rest of the story. Her anger with God had not been an immediate response to Ellie’s death. At ﬁ rst, she had clung to scripture, underling the Psalm “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” so many times that her pen cut through the thin pages of her Bible, tearing two pages at once. Her anger bridled slowly over the following months and years as the green grass began to cover Ellie’s grave and Amber realized she had survived. She had been delivered. But delivered for what, she asked herself? A life of waking up and mindlessly functioning? There was no going back, there was no undoing. She and Charlie had counseled dozens of families in the wake of devastating loss. “God can make all things new,” Charlie would comfort them. “Not all things,” Amber now thought. “Not all things.” Charlie was determined to make Ellie’s death mean something. He told their story to anyone who would listen, how God had lifted them through darkness. Now Charlie wanted to take their story to Africa, spreading the redemption of Jesus to the villages of Uganda. She admired his faith, even envied it a little. She would have been ashamed to tell him the full truth of her reluctance to go—that his testimony was beginning to ring less and less true for her. She had broached the subject with him once, and he prayed for God to remove her doubt and protect her mind. She had joined him in this prayer, but she could not make herself pray it in earnest. During the interview, the FMB representative explained that they would have to revisit any problematic answers from Charlie and Amber’s previous responses.

79 W INDHOVER

“You have nothing to worry about,” he said, smiling. He had a kind face and a calm voice that vaguely reminded Amber of a Sun- day School teacher from her childhood. “We just have to take one more look at some of the details on your application, but that’s our routine procedure. You both did a good job explaining your answers.” Danny looked at Amber and hesitated before he spoke. “I noticed you marked ‘yes,’ in response to the question ‘Have you ever had any suicidal thoughts?’” he said. “ I’m sorry to bring up a painful topic, but if you don’t mind, please explain your response.” Amber had written that she’d wished she was dead when Ellie died, had begged God to bring Ellie back and take her instead. She never really contemplated suicide, though, she explained. She had other kids to think about. And God had brought her through. “It’s nothing to worry about, ma’am,” Danny continued, “Your answer on the questionnaire is suffi cient, but we have to walk through these things one more time in person.” Amber stared at the ground as she thought about what she had written. Her eyes rested on Charlie’s boots, which were still muddy from the river. A crumbled piece of ash rested on the brown leather of his left heel. She felt a fl ash of anger as she imagined her daughter trying to catch the dancing ashes. “I have those thoughts every day,” Amber said suddenly. “I took half a jar of Tylenol one time, and I hoped that would do it, but it just made me sick. Sometimes I picture myself jumping off bridges, you know, just kind of imagine it in my mind. What it would feel like. I think about what I would look like in a coffi n.” Charlie was staring at her, his mouth half open, his expression so shocked that it was almost comical. “What are you talking about?” Charlie asked. “I didn’t want to tell you,” she said, now committed to the lie. “I’m sorry,” she said to the interviewer. “I should have said something sooner. I’m just trying to be honest.” He appreciated her honesty, he told her kindly. And in the same kind tone, when they met with him again two hours later, he explained that the mission fi eld was a diffi cult place, that the mission board couldn’t send someone out with this kind of unresolved issue. He prayed with Charlie and Amber and talked to them at length about resources for mental health professionals. He was sorry, but they would be denied acceptance to the program.

On the quiet drive home, Amber watched the passing farmlands, one row of cotton blurring into another, one farm blurring into another. “Why did you say all of that stuff?” Charlie ﬁ nally demanded. “I don’t know.”

80 VOLUME 15

“Was it true?” “No.” “You could have just told me. You could have just said you didn’t want to go.” “I’m sorry.” She really was. “Do you know how many months we’ve worked toward this? All of those interviews and applications.” “I know.” “I really wanted to go, Amber. I really thought God wanted us to go.” “I know.” “Now what will we do?” “I don’t know.” “Why didn’t you just tell me?” “I tried.” The relief Amber felt was almost physical. Surely, she thought, God could forgive thirty minutes of lies in an interview better than he could a lifetime of lies in another land.

The next Tuesday morning Amber listened intently to the steady rush of the river. For the fi rst time since they had begun their Tues- day morning trips, she prayed. As she watched the sun begin its slow rise over the misty water, she prayed for Charlie, she prayed for herself, she prayed for the boys. She prayed for hope. Charlie was not fully visible as the fog rolled slowly over the river. She could see the arch of his back. He was not fi shing, was instead staring into the clear water. She knew he was thinking about Uganda. She walked over and stood beside him, bracing herself against the cold of the water, and slipped her arm through his. “What do we do now?” he asked. “I don’t know.” They were both silent as they watched the water fl owing easily over the smooth rocks below.

81 W INDHOVER

Mary Chandler

MR. TRAIN MAN AND MARTHA

Wendell hunched over his workbench, repairing a section of his outdoor train track. Outside, the wind howled. “You in there?” a voice called. “It’s Nick. Brought you some coffee and a pastrami on rye.” Not again, Wendell thought. Since cancer took Afton six weeks ago, Nick hasn’t given me a moment’s peace. “Yeah, I’m here. C’mon in,” The shop door slammed shut. Nick handed Wendell the food, pulled off his jacket and red wool cap, and sat down. “Well?” Nick asked. “Well, what?” “Does that track mean you’re going to set up your annual Christ- mas train ride to the stable?” “Like I said, Nick, I don’t know if I’m up to it, what with Afton gone and all.” He sipped his coffee. “It was her idea, you know. Her way of giving to the neighborhood kids—especially to Martha.” “You mean Mrs. O’Malley’s girl? The twenty-something adult with the mind of a six-year-old?” “Exactly. Afton painted ﬂ owered barrettes for Martha’s hair, and last year she made her a Christmas pin. Anything to make her feel special.” Wendell sighed. “To tell the truth, Nick, seeing Martha and Mrs. O’Malley depresses me.”

“Why’s that? They seem happy enough.” Wendell shrugged. How could he explain shattered dreams and a broken heart to someone who couldn’t possibly understand? Nick still had his Nancy and a passel of super-bright kids. “Well, if you decide to go through with the train ride, call and we’ll be over.” “Thanks, Nick. And thanks for the food.” That night Wendell walked through the lonely house. Memories of Afton lingered everywhere. In the kitchen, arranging her criss- cross pie crust over cinnamon-apple pie, Wendell’s favorite. In the living room, reading her Bible beside the blazing ﬁ re. In the bedroom, thanking God for His blessings, before snuggling close. “Why did you leave me?” Wendell said aloud. “Why?” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. A deep heavi- ness settled over him. He sank into his recliner and turned on the TV to drown out the quiet. The ringing phone startled him.

82 VOLUME 15

“Mrs. O’Malley here. Just wondering about your Christmas plans, you know, before I make promises to Martha.” Wendell stared at the empty chair beside the ﬁ replace. No question what Afton would do, if she were still here. “Sure,” he heard himself say. “Tell Martha that the train ride and the stable are on.”

After he hung up,Wendell wondered what he’d gotten himself into. The train cars needed touch-up paint. Parts of the extensive track needed to be repaired and reassembled. The engine would have to be oiled and tuned. The tunnel leading to the barn needed attention. Gifts had to be made and wrapped. And he’d have to fi n- ish the face of Mary for the new life-sized nativity scene he’d been making for Afton. That face would be his biggest challenge. He’d tried repeatedly, but he couldn’t get it right. Wendell checked his calendar, wondering how one day could have melted into the next all these weeks without him noticing. “Twelve days until Christmas Eve,” he said. “Only twelve days. Better call Nick.” Early Saturday morning Wendell hurried to his shop to mix the paints. Adding bright red for accents, he touched up the black train engine, while Nick and the four Nelson kids painted the blue, yellow, green, and orange cars. Laughter fi lled the shop. Wendell scurried from one car to the next, checking the work and answering a million questions. He thought about Jeremy and Casey, his young grandsons in Alaska, and wished they could be here to help. “Whew! I never knew how much work you went to for your Christmas ride, Wendell,” Nick said, as he straightened a section of track and hooked it to another section. “How long you been doin’ this, anyway?” “Nineteen years, come December 24—since Martha turned eight.” Every morning Nick and his kids helped Wendell inside his shop and fi xing the tracks. Mid-afternoon they disappeared with Nancy and Nick.

“What’s left? And how can we help?” Nick asked on December 23. “Nancy and her Sunday school class are ﬁ nishing the gifts, along with my Boy Scout troop.” He smiled. “Amazing what those kids can create! Beaded bracelets, necklaces, picture frames, keepsake boxes and the like for the girls; tooled belts, carved planes, trucks, cars, and wooden whistles for the boys.” “Great!” Wendell wiped his hands on his shop apron. “Tomor- row we need to shore up the tunnel leading to the barn, string the lights, and hang the star. I’ll set up the nativity scene inside the

83 W INDHOVER barn tonight.” “We’ll be back,” Nick promised, gathering up the kids to work on their gift projects. From the back of his shop Wendell removed his new carvings— Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, two shepherds, the three wise men carrying their gifts, four lambs and a grazing cow. One by one he carried them into the barn and placed them on the straw—except for Mary. For Mary he needed a face—a young, innocent face, fi lled with love and sacrifi ce. And then he remembered Afton’s print of Michelangelo’s pieta— the mother holding the crucifi ed Christ in her arms, sculpted with her face frozen in time, in memory of Michelangelo’s own mother who died when he was only six. Strangely, that mother’s face reminded Wendell of someone else.

Wendell gathered his brushes and paints and, with the print beside him, went to work. It seemed as though someone was guiding his hand. As he painted, he imagined Afton looking down and smiling. By fi ve o’clock on Christmas Eve the train cars bustled with happy children. When the ride fi nished, the kids were met by their parents inside the barn by the stable, where they awaited the annual Christmas story and a home-made gift in memory of the gifts brought to the Christ Child. Three train trips later, Mrs. O’Malley and Martha still hadn’t arrived. Wendell worried that something terrible had happened. In past years, the O’Malleys had always come early and lined up fi rst. And then he saw them—a loving mother and her daughter-child, walking hand-in-hand toward the train. “I see the train! I see the train!” Martha shouted, breaking loose and running toward him. “Is the train going to the baby Jesus, Mr. Train Man?” she asked. “It is, and it’s been waiting for you. Hop in, and let’s go!” Martha stared at the nativity scene inside the barn. “Me,” she said, pointing to Mary’s face and then to herself. Wendell looked at Mrs. O’Malley and nodded. Her eyes brimmed with tears. His heart was full. Martha sat quietly with the other children, while Wendell read the story of the birth of Jesus from his well-worn Bible. While the kids were opening their gifts, Wendell leaned over. “Martha,” he whispered, “I have something special just for you.”

She unwrapped the gift—the print of Michelangelo’s pieta in a new custom-made frame, gilded with gold. “Look, Mama!” she said. “It’s Martha-Mary holding Jesus, before he went to live in heaven.” She clutched her treasure close to

84 VOLUME 15 her heart. “I love my Jesus,” Martha said. “Thank you, Mr. Train Man.” She paused. “Mama said Mrs. Train Lady lives in heaven, too, with Jesus.” Wendell nodded. “She does.” Martha smiled—the sweet, innocent smile of a child—and Wen- dell felt the hole in his heart growing smaller.

85 W INDHOVER

THE EIGHTH ANNUAL GEORGE NIXON MEMORIAL LECTURE, JANUARY 7, 2010

Each year at the Writers’ Festival in early January on the campus of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a keynote address is delivered in honor of George Nixon, the late husband of Donna Walker-Nixon, founder of Windhover and the Writers’ Festival. On January 7, 2010, Kelly Cherry read from her prose and poetry. Traditionally, Windhover has presented the text of the George Nixon Memorial lecture. Since Cherry read from her published books, all of which are widely available, the tradition seemed impractical and unnecessary. Then, in a nice coincidence, Sorina Higgins contacted Audell about doing an interview about the current state of poetry for Iambic Admonit, and the idea of Sorina interviewing Kelly was born. Windhover commissioned Sørina to do an interview with Kelly.

86 VOLUME 15

Sørina Higgins

INTERVIEW WITH KELLY CHERRY

Out of the terrifying proliferation of contemporary poets, let me call your attention to just one. It might have been another poet. Some other time, it will be another poet. But today, it is Kelly Cherry. Cherry writes more than poetry; she writes novels, essays, memoirs, translations, song lyrics, short stories, and light literary criticism. However, it is in her poetry that her writing pace slows and the language crystallizes into something other than, and— thus—more than herself. Perhaps this is because, as she said in an interview with Pam Kingsbury of Southern Scribe, “poetry demands silence and space, freedom from worry, a concentration that can leave you wrung out and exhausted.” The writing of poetry demands this; the reading of good poetry, of Cherry’s poetry, invites this. Her individual poems and volumes of verse usher the reader into silence and music, into empty space and crowded space, into æons of time past and future, and into a kind of mental concentration that is pleasantly refreshing. Recently, I had the privilege to interview Kelly Cherry via email as part of a series interrogating the current state of the arts in America. For many years, I have pondered the reciprocal interac- tions that exist among historical events, the arts, and what might be called the philosophy or ideology of a time period. Each passing era has, in retrospect, some unifying sense of style, mood, purpose, or concept—especially in certain geographical locations—that can be isolated, studied, and described. Thus we can talk about the sym- metry and harmony of the Classical Era, the intricate complexities of the Rococo, the rootless depression of the “Lost Generation,” the intentional synaesthesia of the Harlem Renaissance, and so on. These movements are sometimes conscious, sometimes more loosely constructed. They are usually intertwined with political and religious developments. It is fairly easy to study them from a chronological distance, assisted by historians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and the like. However, it is much more diffi cult to ascertain the tone of one’s own day. Could you say with confi dence what techniques, topics, and theories inform the arts of the so-called Western world at this exact moment, and what those discrete observations add up to as a whole? Over the past ten months, I have asked writers, visual artists, actors, theatre directors, musicians, composers, conductors, and arts promoters this question. Below you can read Kelly’s insightful answers, both broad and particular, interspersed with commentary arising from a reading of her poetry, fi ction, and nonfi ction.

87 W INDHOVER

Sørina Higgins: Please tell us about yourself. In what media do you create or perform? Do you also teach? Are you also a student? Please talk about yourself as an “artist,” student of the arts, and teacher of the arts.

Kelly Cherry: I am a writer. I work in a number of forms: ﬁ ction (novel and short story), poetry (formal and free), essay (critical, memoir, and personal), and I have published two translations of classical drama. I am Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin Madison and have continued to teach, at various universities, in retirement. Teaching is important and necessary work, and I feel close to many of my students and enjoy following them in their own careers, but I must admit my primary focus is my own writing: I have something like a mental image of a bookshelf and hope to write all the books that belong on the shelf; there are fourteen to go. Each book, of course, has to take as long as it has to take.

SH: What topics tend to recur in your work?

KC: Love, loss, music, money, philosophical inquiry, an interest in science, the nature of metaphor, Russia’s Soviet past.

Kelly is modest here in her list of topics; she underplays both the variety and the depth of her interests. When pondering a point in time or a point in space, she is not content to rest just there. She has all the minute particularity that any decent poet needs, but she is also compelled by a restless inner seeking to probe in all directions until she reaches ultimate beginnings and endings. Open Natural Theology, for example, and before you have ﬁ nished two lines, you are at the instant of birth; one line later, at gestation, or conception; twenty-four lines in, you swim into the primordial soup; and by the end of the poem, you are all the way back at the very start of life, of the universe, and of the possibility of love. Love? Romance, marriages, divorces, adulterous affairs, women’s bodies, seduction, sexual exploitation, sexual independence, and sexual promiscuity tramp in an explicit carnival through her pages. In contrast, and sometimes as a result, there are also dry days of bleak monochrome and years of despair. Cherry does not shy away from exposing her exterior or her interior life. She exercises enormous bravado by exposing her autobiography in many works, thus risk- ing condemnation or misunderstanding of her life’s choice. But in her case, a discussion of private life leads to contemplation of social

88 VOLUME 15 concerns: taxes and governmental structures are just a hair’s breath away from the bedroom or the kitchen, and made their intimacy with the quotidian evident in Kelly’s story. Her personal tale of cross- cultural relationships leads inevitably, in a writer of large heart, to an understanding of universal humanity. But her best work is easier than all that—easier, and harder. It is easier to experience, and hard to the touch: earthy elements, weather, the stuff the earth is made of, and the stuff that we are made of. When she turns her pen to a close, tight examination of the elemental, then she soars.

SH: What is your interest in Russia’s Soviet past? Do you have a personal connection? How is it relevant for America right now? How does this past comment on Russia’s and America’s literary past and present?

KC: For a number of years a Latvian composer and I attempted to marry; Latvia was then behind the Iron Curtain. I tell this story in The Exiled Heart: A Meditative Autobiography, which is, I believe, still available from LSU Press. But I was very interested in 19th- century Russian literature long before I made my ﬁ rst visit to the Soviet Union and I remain interested in that, as well as in Russian poetry from the early and mid 20th century.

SH: What questions of philosophical inquiry have you explored, and why? Do you see these questions as timeless, unanswerable vortexes for endless questioning, or do you see them as simply the starting points for logical syllogisms? Are they answerable or not? And are they purely theoretical, or are the practical and to be lived out? One review of your work says: “Cherry has a unique voice and style, blending feminist verve with formal rhyme schemes that lull you with their steady rhythm, then slap you upside the head with a burst of ideology.” What is this ideology?

KC: I did graduate work as a Du Pont Fellow at the University of Virginia. This does not make me a philosopher, although I dropped out for reasons having nothing to do with my work there. My dis- sertation was going to be on C. S. Peirce’s metaphysics. He was one of the ﬁ rst to propose what came to be called pragmatism; he preferred the term pragmaticism, hoping William James would ﬁ nd it too ugly to beg, borrow, or steal.

This really has nothing to do with writing.

89 W INDHOVER

I do think life is riddled with philosophical questions, and that it is useful to be aware of how we answer them. But I don’t write, or at least have not yet written, to lay a conclusion on anybody.

That nice review was in reference to my poetry collection Rising Ve- nus, which explored the concepts of femaleness and femininity. The book advocates no ideology, but the point of view is mostly feminist. I consider myself a feminist; I joined a consciousness-raising group at the ﬁ rst meeting in NYC, in the early 70s; and I nevertheless utterly dislike the feminist notion that women writers should write only strong, independent women characters who can serve as role models for readers. I want to write any character it occurs to me to write.

SH: I notice how you blend the “nature poem” with a metaphysical question in “In the Field” from Hazard and Prospect: In this shadowless light of uncontaminated noon, a fence post gleams as if gilded, church spire where there is no church. The impossibly beautiful blossoms of the crab apple have spilled onto the ground, an imperturbable pool of pink and white. This illusion of the real, almost real. When you say you have “an interest in science,” does that mean nature poems, mechanical inquiry into how things work, a fascina- tion with cutting-edge scientiﬁ c technology, or what? Is it age-old curiosity, or a very contemporary kind of materialism?

KC: In college I took classes in physics, biology, geology (current and historical), astronomy, anthropology, and sociology and a number of credits in mathematics. My parents thought it would be great if I became a scientist—and could earn some money—but my interest in these subjects was merely a writer’s curiosity. I certainly had no talent for science. Yet how can someone not be interested in science? It’s the study of where we live—our universe.

Kelly plays skillfully, though lightly, with those philosophical questions and shares her answers to some of them, then her new questions about the answers in some of her nonfi ction. In an essay entitled “Why the Figure of Christ Keeps Turning Up in My Work” (in Writing the World), Cherry claims that: “I have fi gured out that the language I think with, the language I have thought with since I fi rst began to thin, is the fi gure of Christ” and “the discourse itself is Christ” (15). This is a huge and fascinating claim. But what does it mean? How can one talk Christ—as one can talk, say, French—or speak in Christ, as in, speak in tongues? I think it has something to

90 VOLUME 15 do, again, with Cherry’s mental autobiography: that after trying to talk and live atheism, aestheticism, then Judaism, she found that she couldn’t exist as a speaking and writing person outside of some understanding of Christianity as at least a point of origins. This has something to do with the eternal Logos, the Word, to which she returns again and again. In her nonfi ction, she claims that Christ is the language in which she writes—a beautiful sentence that perhaps raises as many questions as it answers. In The Exiled Heart, she explores this from another perspective: The writer who always talks about writing and never does it is no writer. And if there is a God, he surely sits at his desk in the great study, eternally scribbling his one word, the Logos. But this one word, being metaword, contains beginning, middle, and end, and so he never writes a second word and therefore is always beginning to tell the story. He creates himself anew every morning (173). Is this metaphor or blasphemy? There is room around the edges of orthodoxy in much of Kelly’s writing, as in her life. Yet she seems to have a deep rooted optimism underneath, somehow supporting, her surface of despair. In “A Throw of the Dice” from The Retreats from Thought (2, ll. 1-8), she ponders the old problem of superfl uity: why should this universe exist, after all? It doesn’t need to, does it? The question that confronts us fi rst is, Why something? Why is there anything at all instead of simply nothing, nada? I suggest that something is more probable than nothing—that of which there can’t be more than one at most—while on the other hand abound glad possibilities galore for life and stuff. Now, that’s gladness in spite of, or inside of, pessimism. No really bitter person (we discuss bitterness below) could say “galore” and “stuff” in just that way! Nor be so audaciously almost casually, virtuosic with such a “serious” subject. Notice a few other elements of technique, too: the hair-pin enjambments, the colloquial diction combined with surprising pinches of philosophy, the embedded variety of voices. Kelly and I next went on to discuss her writing techniques.

SH: What speciﬁ c techniques do you use?

KC: I write with a cheap pen, in a spiral notebook.

SH: What I’m looking for here is a discussion of the devices and methods you use in your writing. For instance, in your poetry you

91 W INDHOVER sometimes use balladic rhythms and direct rhymes (in some of the “Benjamin John” poems, for instance). You also frequently write long narrative poems, or shorter lyric poems that add up to a suggested or implied narrative over the course of a series or of a book. You work quite comfortably in both free verse and traditional forms. Why? Why ballad meters? Why direct rhymes? Why free verse? Why forms?

KC: The only real way I can answer these questions is, Why not? Why not make use of every device available? Different poems call for different meters, rhymes or no rhymes, and so on. Freedom for a writer is being able to access whatever is needed for a particular piece of work. Right now I’m working on a book-length poem that will be a kind of collage, similar to my early “Benjamin John” but not limited to lyric moments, and, as I say, longer.

SH: I’ve noticed that each of your poems is a gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) skeptical commentary on an aspect of American life— war, academia, marriage, child-rearing, love and sex—describing an event with a tinge of bitterness. Is this exemplary of our age, do you think? Does it behoove us, here and now, to write intimate snapshots of moments in individual stories (rather than grand meta-narratives) and at the same time to laugh a little bit at those stories, because they are painful, they are passing, and they cannot last?

KC: Hmmm. Well, I hope I’m not often bitter. Perhaps Relativity: A Point of View was a bit bitter, but that was a long time ago, and after a divorce. “Skeptical” I can agree with. I think what behooves us is to approach our cultural “norms” with a questioning attitude. Let’s not sleep away our lives. But I’m working on something that may be a kind of meta-narrative right now—the long poem mentioned above—and I’m working on a trilogy of short-story collections that is to be a meta-narrative. I’m simply in favor of freedom. Long, short, metered, free, lyric, narrative, meditation—all are choices, and I like working in all of them. Taking cues from others, whether they are writers or not, limits one’s work.

Kelly is as good as her word. Her tone can range from minimal meditation: The sun will shake off Outworn rag-ends Of clouds: as a moth Sheds its golden Spent chrysalis (from “A P.O.W. Asian Warlord, Aristocrat, Slips this Poem to PFC B. John” from Benjamin John)

92 VOLUME 15 to desperately whimsical: “He will pack his toothbrush; / Solo, straddle and spur a llama to Chile or Peru...” (from “The Getaway” from Benjamin John). She has a great ear for subtle, strong, and unexpected rhymes, as well as for homonyms and other consonances: The fi rmament thus is rolled back; above him, cold is the airy aerie Heaven sent to taunt him in his discontent (“His First Exploration of the Sea Made at Midnight” from Benjamin John). She is comfortable in lines of wildly different lengths and can work in tight forms or in looser long lines. She is equally adept in narrative and in lyric—or in sliding smoothly between the two in a single piece. She has a huge vocabulary, and can even coin neologisms worthy of a Lear or a Carroll and slide them inside delightful rhythms: He was oh so sorely mistaken In highhanded Eileen, Who, friend Curt used to say, last night was seen Twirling with Earl; her eyes outshone the green she fi zgiggly wore, And she was matchless. A fi fth of a pint more … (“Benjamin John and the Green Queen” from Benjamin John).

All this, with a thoughtfulness borne of introspection. Cherry is a thoughtful person, a life-long student who continues to look deep into the ways things work, especially human beings. I asked her about the ideas that drive her writing.

SH: What theories inform your work?

KC: Theories don’t inform my work. The work is formed and informed by characters, structure, point of view, and rhythm. I think that any kind of theory or “message” reduces a book to propaganda. Where ﬁ ction and poetry are concerned, it is more useful to speak of vision than of theory.

SH: I ﬁ nd this interesting. What you have just said, of course, is a literary theory. It is a perspective on, an approach to, acts of creation. And then, too, you are a professor, so you are steeped in the cultural theory of the past few decades. I noticed, for instance, that “Sappho in her study” hints at an interpretation of language that is hidden, difﬁ cult, private, and subject to endless interpretation. So, then, what is your vision? What do you believe are the limitations and obligations of language and those who craft it?

93 W INDHOVER

KC: Well, none of my scholarly colleagues at UW would have digni- fi ed my conception of novel-writing as a theory. You are kinder than they would have been. To repeat, my vision resides in the unifi cation of contradictions or contraries. I like writing poetry and fi ction that is layered: a surface that attracts, supported by underlying alterna- tive meanings. I think the best work generally does that. It’s why we never tire of reading or talking about a great poem, great story, great novel, great musical or visual composition. Mind you, I’m not saying I have succeeded or will succeed at this endeavor, but the fun is in trying.

SH: Do you think your topics, techniques, and ideas are typical of those working in your genre?

KC: I shouldn’t think any artist wants her work to be typical. The artist wants to come as close as possible to realizing her own vision, which is never exactly someone else’s vision. My own vision has to do with encompassing contradictions or contraries within a uniﬁ ed ﬁ eld.

SH: Do you think of yourself as belonging to any particular ‘school’ or ‘movement’?

KC: No.

My sense is that Kelly has been writing for long enough, and in enough genres, to defy tidy labels. This is probably true of many writers throughout their careers, but after their lives perhaps only one of their types of writing—poetry, novels, plays—are really ever sold very much, so the critics analyze those few works and come up ways to place them in categories. This is much harder to do with a living writer, and that’s a good thing, but if I venture to speculate, I suggest again that it is Cherry’s poetry that will survive, and from among the works of verse, those that are the furthest removed from factual autobiography. The poetry of nature, of time, of a particular town or an individual rose; these come closest to transcendence. These are the moments in which she most nearly competes with her contemporaries. Our next few questions discussed those contemporaries (you might be surprised by the ones she chose to mention), their context, and their—our—possible future.

SH: What do you know about the current state of the arts? Please talk speciﬁ cally about individual writers, etc. whom you know (or whose work you know), their topics/techniques/theories, and in general about your sense of North American arts right now.

94 VOLUME 15

KC: My sense of it is that this is an exciting time in America for poets and less so for fi ction writers. The democratization of writing can be overwhelming, and in such a climate the writer may despair of fi nding an audience, but still the variety and range of voices in poetry can only be stimulating. I’m not sure why the same isn’t true of fi ction, and of course there are fi ne fi ction writers around, but not enough. I doubt that that’s the result of MFA programs; I think MFA programs serve many good purposes. Probably overall the blame goes to the major publishers, who often can’t recognize good fi ction, or even good writing, and when they do, feel it’s not marketable.

Meanwhile, superb writers (some of them both poets and fi ction writers) such as Fred Chappell, David R. Slavitt, Richard Dillard, Henry Taylor, Richard and Robert Bausch, Skip Horack, Jennifer Haigh, Sandra Meek, Cathryn Hankla, Renee Ashley, Gjertrud Schnacken- berg, ZZ Packer, Edward P. Jones, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Henri Cole, Philip Levine, Francine Prose, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Berwyn Moore, Jim Shepard, Ron Currie, Jr., Michael Chabon, A. G. Mojtabai, Charles D’Ambrosio and somewhere between fi fty to fi ve hundred others continue to produce work we need to read.

SH: How do you think the arts (your own or others’) are responding to present and potential world-movements, such as postmodernism, the looming “post-human” and phase, and the possible artistic effects of the Eastward orientation of economics and Christianity?

KC: This is quite a question! Well, I’ll just pull out a piece of it. “The looming ‘post-human’” phase has brought about any number of apocalyptic novels, experimental short ﬁ ctions, and sci-ﬁ movies.

SH: How do you think we got to the phase where we are now?

KC: I think John Dewey is responsible for a lot of how we come to be here now. And for me, the unfortunate aspect of that is evident in what is called “postmodernism,” the mixing of pop culture with high culture. Yes, I still believe in high culture. And I believe in not going pop in order to be popular. Somehow, saying this has become associated with elitism, but what, exactly, is elitist about it? High culture (by which I do not mean merely modernism) is available to all who want to enter into it. The trouble with pop culture is simply that it’s not very interesting or entertaining; there is no seriousness to it, no complexity. In short, it’s boring, or quickly becomes boring. Similarly, I’m not interested in recondite literature that pretends to be serious and complex but isn’t. I’m in favor of thought, of clarity, of extension of thought, and depth. I like humor that’s not mean or

95 W INDHOVER predicated on a sense of superiority. I like play that’s fun. I like art that is unafraid of human feeling. And I think that irony is a useful tool that in our time has become unfortunately fetishized.

SH: What do you mean, “irony is a useful tool that in our time has become unfortunately fetishized”? How has it become fetishized? Can you give examples? How ought irony to be used so that it keeps it usefulness?

KC: Irony has been championed to the exclusion of passion. In that degree, it is a type of dishonesty: a desire to be “cool” is necessarily a desire to be someone other than the person one is. Used appro- priately as a device, irony can expose hypocrisy, heighten pathos, or make us laugh.

SH: You discussed the boring and simplistic nature of “pop” culture. Is that a matter of form or content, do you think? Is this kind of “art” not great because it is poorly done, because it has nothing interesting to say, or both? In other words, is it a matter of technique or of ideas? And is the boundary between “high” and “low” art easy to demarcate?

KC: It’s both. And the boundary between “high” and “low” is usually pretty evident. If it isn’t evident, I return to it—whatever it is—until I have a clear sense of it. I can say this because I trust my judgment. I am sure not everybody trusts my judgment, but what can I say? I can’t say anything without infuriating someone.

SH: Where are we going?

KC: I don’t think I can answer this better than or even as well as some other folks. Questions regarding war, the environment, vanish- ing species, immigration, sociology and artiﬁ cial intelligence make me pay attention, but I can’t answer them. The emergent e-culture frightens me a bit but may turn out to be not a bad thing. Will we survive? Must we reinvent ourselves in silicon in order to survive? Whose work will survive, if anyone’s work survives? What will art mean to robots, or just to future human generations? Darned if I know. Really, all I know is that I have to write.

Kelly does indeed continue to write in all of her varied forms, producing six books in the last decade alone: Rising Venus: Poems in 2002; My Life and Dr. Joyce Brothers (A novel in twelve short stories) in 2002; We Can Still Be Friends (a novel) in 2004; History,

96 VOLUME 15

Passion, Freedom, Death, and Hope: Prose About Poetry in 2005; Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems in 2007; and Girl in a Library (a collection of essays) in 2009. If you have to choose, you might want to grab the poems.

97 W INDHOVER

Michael Hugh Lythgoe

A REVIEW OF PHARAOH’S DAUGHTER

Pharaoh’s Daughter, by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. Winston-Salem: Wake Forest UP, 1993. ISBN 0-916390-53-5 (revised edition, 8th printing). 160 pages.

Most readers of contemporary Irish poetry know the works of Seamus Heaney and are familiar with the poems of Paul Muldoon and Eavan Boland. In preparation for a speaking engagement, I set out to review some other Irish poets writing today. A good place to begin is with the publications put out by Wake Forest University Press. They specialize in Irish and French poetry in translations. Any poet coming from the Irish-English literary tradition must deal with William Butler Yeats. Yeats, as Heaney reminds the reader in his essay, “Yeats As An Example?” (Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978)—would never have been “content to live”—as Yeats said of Robert Lowell. Yeats could not throw words away, or throw gestures away. He was too interested in the possibilities for drama and transcendence. “From the beginning of his career he emphasized and realized the otherness of art from life...” (98). Art, then is not life, but the life of the imagination. Art is more than autobiography. Arguments about truth and beauty, however, persist. Yeats insisted on his own language; he was remote and eccentric in his beliefs, his behavior, and in his terms of reference: The Moon and Great Wheels. He also, wrote of fairies. Irish poets still cast spells today. Eavan Boland, born in Dublin, and author of seven volumes of poetry, and an essay collection: Object Lessons: The Life Of The Woman And The Poet In Our Time (Norton, 1995), teaches and travels in the USA, but keeps a home in Ireland. She was interviewed by Elizabeth Schmidt, (available online through The Academy of American Poets). In the questions and answers she speaks to the differences between American and Irish poetry. Both are, of course, informed by history and heritage. American poetry is more diverse, she says, larger. “Irish bards lie down in darkness to compose.” The Irish tradition is less “print,” more an oral culture. The Irish poet is ﬁ ghting to recover a language destroyed by the English. If the American poet feels isolated, the Irish poet “feels oppressed by the communal shadows that fall across the poem.” If the contemporary Irish poet is energized by a sense of a “new” language using and making English fresh, her lyric is often “strong, eloquent, accessible.” The best poets seem to celebrate a sense of place. Wordsworth and John Clare write from rural settings, as does Heaney.

98 VOLUME 15

To sample Irish poetry we must have translations from the Irish. A poet who teaches in North Carolina, gave a workshop on Transla- tion in Charleston, SC recently. Her fi rst language is Swedish. In discussing the poems of Tomas Transtormer, she said several different poets working on his poems create a better collection than having all his Swedish lines come through one voice or English fi lter. That is the beauty of Pharaoh’s Daughter, forty-fi ve poems in Irish by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, translated by thirteen distinguished poets from Ireland, including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian, Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon. The poems brought into English face the Gaelic originals in a fi ne paper edition. Born in 1952, Dhomhnaill grew up in the Irish speaking area of West Kerry and Tipperary. She earned her degree at University College, Cork. She is a poet, playwright, and mother of four. Her craft is all about keeping the Irish language alive. She loves to push back as a feminist in the male-dominated Irish tradition, but is more interested in language than gender. Her poems range from ballads, erotic songs, folk tales, religious imagery in poems of faith and liturgy, elegies, from love poems (marriage poems) and aubades to surreal landscapes.

Every nook of this peninsula can speak to me in its own tongue, in words I understand. There’s not one twist of road or little grove that can’t insinuate its whispered courtship at my ear. (“Driving West” 133)

In “Hag” the Mount Eagle takes on bodily traits in a dream and seems an old witch by poem’s end (136). “Household” is a tale of characters in a large family (151), often Gothic in tone and imagery, with “curses.” I particularly admire the strong, lyrical, love poem, “Stronghold” (121-122). Her poems are sensual, “sticky,” smelling of blood. In “The Bond,” “My eyes full of candles, / And the two dead oars” (13), echoes Dante’s Charon, the boatman, who poles dead souls over the river. The title poem is “The Language Issue,” a poem translated by Paul Mauldoon which gives us the collection’s title in its ﬁ nal words. Feel the tenderness, the motherly way she has with her art, how she is a seer as well as a sayer:

I place my hope on the water in this little boat of the language, the way a body might put an infant ......

99 W INDHOVER

only to have it borne hither and thither, not knowing where it might end up; in the lap, perhaps, of some Pharaoh’s daughter. (155)

These are mysterious, lively, sexy, humorous poems full of ﬁ gurative language, crafted by “teams” of Irish poets. I commend them to you. They will “put a match / To the peat briquettes...” of your imagination. May your mind burn and keep the wolf’s bite from your windowpanes (see “Nine Little Goats” 111).

100 VOLUME 15

Barbara Crooker

A REVIEW OF SLIPPING OUT OF BLOOM

Slipping Out of Bloom, by Julie L. Moore. Cincinnati: WordTech, 2010. ISBN 978-1934999844 (paperback). 106 pages.

Like the pear blossom she describes delicately separating from its branch, Julie Moore’s tender poems slip from her pen and into our consciousness. Her poems are acts of attention, paying heed to the world’s fi nite beauty. Her ear is so fi nely tuned that she can hear the sound of a “cello / humming from each oak leaf.” (“Say It”) While this book contains many graceful lyrics, there are a number of dark night of the soul poems, too—the suicide of a close friend, the suicide of one of her children’s classmates, her own illness, one she likens to the Bad Lands of Dakota, “pain piercing every minute.”(“Mako Sica”) Still, in spite of these diffi culties and sorrows, Moore writes, “Say it, / oh do say it, / and today I will believe”(“Say It”). Moore struggles with doubt throughout the book. She has an unnamed illness, one with a pain “sociopathic in all its intentions” (“Agony of Healing”). It’s a pain that brings her to her knees, where she “could have swallowed hard / all 300 pills of Neurontin,” but instead chooses to enter “into the agony /of healing” (“Agony of Healing”). We know Moore is a Christian by the litany on her acknowledgments page: The Christian Century, Christianity & Lit- erature, The Christian Science Monitor, The Cresset, Literature and Belief, Radix, Relief: A Christian Literary Expression, plus her work has graced the pages of Windhover before. But this book does not provide easy answers or nicey-nicey Christian fairy tales; instead, she wrestles with doubt like Jacob with the angel. “I wondered again that December day / whether God had abandoned me. . . six months / of fi erce pain where deep called to deep / and there was no reply” (“Answer”). When we read about suffering on this level, it makes us recall, on a more immediate and visceral level (if this could happen to her, it could happen to me), the sufferings of Jesus. Despite this debilitating and mysterious illness, Moore remains optimistic and open to possibility. At one point she says, “I might’ve stolen / Anything to be healed” (“Upon Reading The Magician’s Nephew with my Son”), but she doesn’t. Instead, she learns recon- ciliation: “At some point you make peace with it / Your life as it is, with all it offers you” (“Innocence”). Because of this hard-fought inner peace, Moore rejects the notion of suicide, although she bears witness to it, twice. “Agony of Healing” bluntly sets the scene in the fi rst line: “You overdosed.” She

101 W INDHOVER continues to address the deceased: “you / who chose in the visible face / of unknown danger // to swallow hard, die young.” This leads her to think of a way out as her pain worsens, how she could take pills, “counting them out // like I’d seen my father do / a hundred times in his pharmacy, / thought about the fl at knife for spreading frosting // to use for the numbering, / thought about the long orange capsules / clashing with the green Formica.” But instead, Moore chooses “the palpable arms of light” (“Agony of Healing”). I think it’s no lucky accident, but a conscious choice that led her to the Mary Oliver quote, “light of the world, hold me,” for an epigraph for the book. “Before Birds Rise” deals with the death of her daughter’s class- mate, a boy who “would // rifl e through his life, fi nd / nothing.” Moore describes how they “should’ve known it was coming when “crows / landed like bullet shells on our white lawn,” and how, when he said goodbye to his friends the day before, they might have seen death coming “like a silver shot / surging into fl ight.” But the reality is, usually none of us ever do see this, except in retrospect. Faith and luck keep Moore from despair: “I want to have an appointment every day / with cool earth, warm blood / and fi re—I want / that good thing” (“Good Thing”). So where is God in all this? Right from the fi rst page, the light of Christ is infused in these poems. The ornamental pear tree bleeds “green as leaf after spear- // like leaf thrusts through, / laying down one life // for another” (“Becoming”). Immediately, we think of the sacrifi ce of Jesus, with this poem setting the tone for those that come afterwards. “Voice” is an antiphon, incorporating Psalm 19. “Enoch” recounts the story of that prophet; Moses (and the parting of the SUVs (!)) shows up in “What Is Given.” There’s a reference to the wounds of Christ in “Proximity” (“so close my hand/ could touch its fl eshy / sun-pierced side”), “Elisha’s Bones” are exhumed in the poem by the same name, Peter’s shadow from Acts appears in “Shadows,” Elijah spirals up through the gray in “Election Day,” Jonah is delivered “from the great fi sh’s tomb, and Jesus bursts “through the earth’s belly” (“Tree Art”) ; even the fi eld where Judas died (“Akeldama”) serves as a place of retreat for the stabbing pain Moore encounters. But God most often appears in His dyslexic form, as Maggie the dog. In a poem previously quoted (“Answer”), Moore describes the despair she felt after six months of unending pain. “Then my daughter took the dog for a walk. / I hadn’t asked her. She just did it, / inducing pleasure like a gift.” We see God’s love breaking through in an unasked for and unexpected way. Later in the book, off on a walk, it’s Maggie who leads the way back home (“Good Thing”). Towards the book’s end, despite the deep sorrows and even deeper pain, Moore encounters joy:

102 VOLUME 15

Firefl ies fl ashing over hip-high corn— breathe deep as if it’s the fi rst time this joy unfurls like a ribbon from the pith beneath your ribs. (“Joy”)

In the end, it’s beauty that redeems the world, a beauty that’s entwined with God’s love, that cannot be separated from it. As a believer, Moore looks beyond, to the life of the world to come: “But listen: / I don’t live this world so much / that I want to stay forever.” (“Reasons to Stay”) Yet while she’s here, Moore is dedicated to describing the world that is, and to bringing it to life before our eyes. In the opening poem, she describes how the ornamental pear tree “slowly slips /out of bloom,” and “how / willingly it becomes // and becomes,” (“Becoming”) and we willingly come along with her, too, in this haunting and poignant debut book.

103 W INDHOVER

CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Jo Balistreri writes every day. It is her passion and her spiritual path. Her training is in music. She was formerly a concert pianist and harpsichordist, but in a near death experience, her hearing was destroyed. Her ﬁ rst book, Joy in the Morning, was published by Bellowing Ark Press in 2008, and she is working on a second. This is her second appearance in Windhover.

Alan Berecka recently participated in the 2010 Druskininkai Poetry Festival in Vilnius and Druskininkai, Lithuania. His poetry has appeared in such places as Ruminate, The Christian Century, The Penwood Review, and Windhover. He lives in Sinton Texas and is a librarian at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi.

Alan Birkelbach was the 2005 Poet Laureate of Texas. He has six collections of poetry and has two books coming out in 2011--Rogue Waves, from Texas Review Press and he is the editor for Dark In- spiration: Selected Poetry from Robert E. Howard. Alan has been published in journals such as Concho River Review, The Blue Rock Review and Descant. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and two Wrangler Awards. His website is: alanbirkelbach.com

Donna Bowling is a writer, teacher and occasional preacher. Following her retirement from the practice of law, she obtained a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree from Austin Presby- terian Theological Seminary. She co-authored the nonﬁ ction book, Reclaiming Civility in the Public Square: Ten Rules That Work, with Rev. Cassandra Dahnke and Rev. Tomas Spath. She was born in Kansas City, Kansas and grew up in Oklahoma, where she attended college and law school and met her husband, John. They lived in Maryland before moving to Texas. She and her husband have three married sons and six grandchildren.

Nathan Brown is a musician, photographer, and award-winning poet from Norman, Oklahoma. He holds a PhD in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Oklahoma and teaches there as well. Mostly he travels now, though, performing readings and concerts as well as speaking and leading workshops in high schools, universities, and community organizations on creativity, creative writing, and the need for readers to not give up on poetry. He has published six books: My Sideways Heart (2010), Two Tables Over (2008)—Winner of the 2009 Oklahoma Book Award, Not Ex- actly Job (2007)—a ﬁ nalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, Ashes Over the Southwest (2005), Suffer the Little Voices (2005)—a ﬁ nalist

104 VOLUME 15 for the Oklahoma Book Award, and Hobson’s Choice (2002). Just released in the spring of 2010, Nathan’s new album of all-original songs, Gypsy Moon, is his ﬁ rst musical project to come out in over a decade. His poems have appeared in: World Literature Today; Concho River Review; Blue Rock Review; Sugar Mule; Di-verse-city (anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival); Blood and Thunder; Wichita Falls Literature and Art Review; “Walt’s Corner” of The Long-Islander newspaper (a column started by Whitman in 1838); Oklahoma Today Magazine; Blueberry Rain and Chocolate Snow; Windhover; Byline Magazine; Blue Hole: Magazine of the Georgetown Poetry Festival; Christian Ethics Today; Crosstimbers; and Poetrybay.com… as well as in a recent anthology: Two South- wests (Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago).

Elizabeth Bruce received a BA, summa cum laude, from University of Texas at Dallas where she is currently enrolled as a graduate student.

Douglas G. Campbell is a professor of art for George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. His poems have been included in Into the Teeth of the Wind, The Paciﬁ c Review, Windhover, Bor- derlands, RiverSedge, Christianity and Literature and many other publications. His artworks have been exhibited in over 160 solo and group exhibits and they have been published in TheOtherSide, The Atlanta Review, Pebble Lake Review, The Mars Hill Review and other publications. His book Seeing: When Art and Faith Intersect was published in 2002 by the University Press of America.

Mary Chandler is a retired teacher whose work has been widely published in journals, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, and on the Internet. She is an avid reader and enjoys travel, especially if opera is on the agenda. Mary enjoys meeting new people and visiting with family and friends. She and her husband, Don, are parents to three wonderful children and ﬁ ve fabulous grandkids.

Vicki Collins is an instructor in the Department of English at The University of South Carolina Aiken where she teaches composition, literary analysis, and ESOL. She directs an annual Young Writers Camp for The Aiken Writing Project. Her poetry has been published in Kakalak: Anthology of Carolina Poets, The Teacher’s Voice, Poetry of the Golden Generation, The Sheltered Poet, Barbaric YAWP, and Traveling Time: A Poetry and Prose Anthology. She is a member of both The Authors Club of Augusta and The Augusta Poetry Group.

105 W INDHOVER

Chet Corey’s poetry has previously appeared in Windhover and most recently in Amoskeag and Hummingbird. Poems are forthcoming in The Penwood Review. He is a Covenant Afﬁ liate of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (La Crosse, WI).

Joe R. Christopher is a professor emeritus of English at Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas. Since his retirement ten years ago he has published more poems, a couple of prose ﬁ ctions (not exactly short stories), more critical essays (mainly on the poetry of C. S. Lewis), and more reviews; and he has edited or co-edited four books (one of them of 1946 radio mysteries). He is one of the contributing editors of Windhover, on the board of the Mythopoeic Press, and on the board of the C. S. Lewis and Inklings Society. He, with fair regularity, reads papers at the conventions of the C. S. Lewis and Inklings Society, the Mythopoeic Society, the Southwestern Conference on Christianity and Literature, and the South Central Modern Language Association. He reads poems at the Langdon Review Weekend in Grandbury, Texas, in the fall and at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Writers Festival, Belton, Texas, in the spring. He has signed a contract with Mellen Poetry for a book of poems which was submitted, in next-to-ﬁ nal form, on 31 December 2010.

David Craig has published nine collections of poetry: The Sandaled Foot (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, ‘80), Psalms (Park Bench Press, ‘82), Peter Maurin and Other Poems (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, ‘85), Marching through Gaul (Scripta Humanistica, ‘90), Only One Face (White Eagle Coffee Store Press, ‘94), The Roof of Heaven (Franciscan University Press, ‘98), Mercy’s Face, New & Selected Poems, 1980-2000 (Franciscan University Press,’00), Sonnets from Matthew, Franciscan University, ‘02), The Hive of the Saints (iUniverse Press,’05) and Mary’s House (Idylls Press,’07). He has also published two works of fi ction: one a fi ctional spiritual biography of a cab driver, The Cheese Stands Alone (CMJ Press,’97), and one a novella, Our Lady of the Outfi eld (CMJ Press,’00). He is also working on a play, Margaret and Her Henchmen, and a family fantasy epic, The Poem of the Undoing. His poetry has been widely published (200+) and anthologized--most signifi cantly in David Impastatos’ Upholding Mystery for Oxford University Press where he shared space with only 12 other poets in the English-speaking world. Thirty-two of his poems are included there. Those poems are also recorded in the Library of Congress, and his Mercy’s Face was chosen as one of the 500 most important literary works in the history of Christendom by Masterplots. He has also co-edited three anthologies of Christian poetry with Dr.

106 VOLUME 15

Janet McCann of Texas A&M University: Odd Angles of Heaven, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994; Place of Passage, Story Line Press, 2000; and Poems of Francis and Clare: An Anthology, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005. He holds M.F.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Bowling Green State University and teaches Creative Writing as a Professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville where he edits a poetry chapbook series. He lives in Weirton, West Virginia, with his wife Linda and their three children, David Thomas, Jude Francis, and Bridget Jean.

Sherry Craven has called both West Texas and East Texas home for much of her life. She taught college English and creative writing and high school Spanish. She has retired and lives in Jasper, TX, in Deep East Texas. She has published poetry, short fi ction, and creative nonfi ction and read poetry for NPR. Her poetry has appeared in English and Spanish in journals such as AmarolloBay, Muse2, New Texas, Two Southwests, The Witness, Windhover, descant, The Langdon Review, RiverSedge, The Texas Review, Concho River Review, El Locofoco, and she is included in the anthology Quotable Texas Women. Her poetry appears in the anthology of Texas writers Texas Poetry 2, and her nonfi ction in Writing on the Wind, a collection of essays by West Texas women writers. She won the Conference of College Teachers of English 2005 poetry award. She is currently an editor for the literary press Ink Brush Press. Her book of poetry, Standing by the Window, was published by vacpoetry in August 2010.

Barbara Crooker’s books are Radiance, which won the 2005 Word Press First Book Award and was a ﬁ nalist for the 2006 Pat- erson Poetry Prize; Line Dance, published in 2008 by Word Press and winner of the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and More (C&R Press, 2010). New work is out or forthcoming in The Valparaiso Poetry Review, Natural Bridge, Green Mountain Review, Windhover, The MacGufﬁ n, The Wisconsin Review, The Hollins Critic, Perspectives, The Basilica Review, Tar River Review, The Cresset, Louisiana Literature, Poet Lore, and others.

Jim Davis is a graduate of Knox College and now lives, writes and paints in Chicago. His work has been selected to appear in Midwest Literary Review, The Ante Review, The Café Review, Chi- ron Review, and Red River Review, among others. In addition to the arts, Jim travels the world as an international semi-professional football player.

Christopher Anthony Fahy is a Lecturer in Humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He is married with

107 W INDHOVER three children, all of whom are attending college. This is the ﬁ fth time he has been published in Windhover.

Lyman Grant greatly enjoys being published in Windhover. He is the author of two books of poems, Text and Commentary and The Road Home, and of one chapbook, Established Parameters. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he taught for over thirty years. Currently, he is Dean of Arts and Humanities at Austin Community College.

Mark E. Harden is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Ofﬁ cer 3. He currently manages Veterans Affairs at Austin Community College and serves as adjunct faculty with the Business Studies Department. His poetry has appeared in the Rio Grande, the Red River Review, and in Old Mountain Press Anthologies. He lives in Georgetown, Texas with his wife Kathy.

Sørina Higgins and her husband live in Kempton, PA, in a home they built themselves. Her debut poetry chapbook, The Signiﬁ - cance of Swans (Finishing Line Press, Aug 2008) was nominated for a Conference on Christianity and Literature 2008 book-of-the-year award. Her writing has appeared in Sehnsucht, Radix, Stillpoint, The Mythic Circle, Relief, Innisfree, Studio, Perspectives, Alive Now, Bible & Spade, and idiom. She is co-writer of a blog on the arts and faith: http://iambicadmonit.blogspot.com. She holds a Certiﬁ cate of Bible from the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies, a B.A. in Eng- lish and Music from Gordon College, and an M.A. from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She teaches courses in literature, writing, music, philosophy, Shakespeare, and The Inklings.

J. Paul Holcomb, “The Poet from Double Oak,” has published one book of poems, Looking for Love in the Telecom Corridor, and one chapbook, Love, or Something Like It. Looking for Love in the Telecom Corridor is a winner of the Edwin M. Eakin Memorial Book Publication Award and Love, or Something Like It is a winner of the Lucidity Chapbook Award. He has published more than 200 poems in various anthologies and literary magazines across the country and in England. His columns on poetry were featured in DFW Poetry Review, Fort Worth Poet, and Poet’s Forum Magazine, Beverly Hills, Florida. He uses those columns to provide Paul’s Poetry Pointers to the poets of the Denton Poets’ Assembly. A past president of the Poetry Society of Texas, Paul also received PST’s Hilton Ross Greer Outstanding Service Award. Mr. Holcomb spent six years on active duty as a U.S. Air Force ofﬁ cer and is retired from a career in soft- ware engineering at Rockwell Collins in Richardson. His degrees are from McMurry University and Southern Methodist University.

108 VOLUME 15

Hannah Heath Johnson is a second-year M.F.A. ﬁ ction can- didate at The University of Memphis, where she also serves as a teaching assistant, teaching literature and composition. She lives in Marion, Arkansas, with her husband, Brad, and daughter, Heather Grace. Her work has also appeared in The Front Porch.

Philip C. Kolin is the University Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to numerous books and articles on Shakespeare, Ten- nessee Williams, and contemporary African American dramatists, Kolin has published four books of poems, A Parable of Women: Poems (Yazoo River Press, 2009) being the most recent. Over 200 of his poems have appeared in such journals/magazines as Christianity and Literature, Christian Century, Spiritus, Anglican Theological Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Saint Anthony Messenger, Paper Street, South Carolina Review, etc. He is the founding editor of Vineyards: A Journal of Christian Poetry (www.vineyardspoetry. com). Kolin has also seen his Successful Writing at Work, a business writing text, go through nine editions (Cengage Learning).

Jacqueline Kolosov’s poetry collections are Modigliani’s Muse (Turning Point, 2009) and Vago (Lewis-Clark, 2007). She has published three novels for young adults as well as co-edited two anthologies of contemporary women’s prose. Recent poetry and prose appear in Orion, Water~stone Review, The Missouri Review, and Under the Sun. Her memoir, “Souvenir,” won the Mozelle Memoir Prize from the Writers League of Texas. She lives in West Texas with her husband and 3 ½-year-old daughter, Sophia, along with two rambunctious dogs. Contact her at [email protected].

Catherine L’Herisson is a wife, mother, grandmother, and retired childcare director. She is a Life Member of the Poetry Soci- ety of Texas, and has recently begun serving as President of that organization. She is also currently serving as president of the Bea Land-Phoenix Chapter of the Poetry Society of Texas. A number of her poems have won PST annual contests, and have been published in their yearly book of prize-winning poems, A Book of the Year. Several other poems have won prizes in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. annual contests, and have been published in Encore, their anthology. Other poems appear in Galaxy of Verse, Lucidity, Texas Poetry Calendar 2009, and Texas Poetry Calendar 2011. Catherine also enjoys presenting poetry programs at senior retirement centers and nursing homes, as well as participating in poetry readings at libraries and bookstores.

109 W INDHOVER

Michael Hugh Lythgoe is the author of a poetry collection, Holy Week, and a chapbook, BRASS, which won the Kinloch Rivers contest in 2006. A Hoosier by birth, he lives now in Aiken, SC, where he won the poetry contest for the 175th Anniversary. His poem, “Telling Details,” was selected for Poetry Matters 2010, celebrating the role of the artist and the poet in the community, sponsored by The Morris Museum of Art and Augusta State University Live of the Mind Series. Lythgoe produced a program of music, images and readings for the Westobou Arts Festival in September at Le Chat Noir Theater. He serves as program chair for the Authors Club of Augusta. His chapbook was a ﬁ nalist for the Split Oak Press contest. Mike’s web site is Brass Bard.com.

Joan Mazza is an author, poet, and speaker. She has worked as a psychotherapist, writing coach, certiﬁ ed sex therapist, and medical microbiologist, has appeared on radio and TV as a dream specialist and led personal growth workshops. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Penguin/Putnam). Her work has appeared in many publications, including Kestrel, Stone’s Throw, Writer’s Digest, Playgirl, and Writer’s Journal. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia. www. JoanMazza.com

Karla K. Morton, the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate, is a graduate of Texas A&M University, and a Board Member of the Greater Den- ton Arts Council. A Betsy Colquitt Award Winner, Indie National Book Award Winner, and North Texas Books Awards Finalist, she has been widely published in literary journals, and is the author of fi ve books of poetry: Wee Cowrin’ Timorous Beastie (a 17th Century Scottish Epic book/CD, Lagniappe Publishing), Redefi ning Beauty (Dos Gatos Press), Becoming Superman (Zone Press), Stirring Goldfi sh (a Sufi poetry book by Finishing Line Press), and Karla K. Morton: New and Selected Works from the TCU Poet Laureate Series (TCU Press). Her next work, titled: Names We’ve Never Known, is due out from the Texas Review Press in the fall of 2010. She has been featured on television, radio, and newspapers across the US. A native Texan, Morton has trekked thousands of miles in her Little Town, Texas Tour, bringing poetry and the arts into schools, colleges, universities, civic groups, cancer support groups, and festivals in communities across her beloved state.

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell teaches courses in English, Creative Writing, and American Catholic Studies at Fordham University in New York City. She also serves as Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her publications

110 VOLUME 15 include chapbooks Mine (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Waiting for Ecstasy (Franciscan University, 2009), and a full-length collection of poems, Moving House (WordTech Press, 2009). Her second full-length collection, Saint Sinatra, will be published in 2011. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in a number of journals, including America, First Things, Christian Century, Commonweal, Comstock Review, First Things, Hawaii Paciﬁ c Review, Italian Americana, RUNES, Valparaiso Review, and Xavier Review. She is pleased and proud to have her work appear in Windhover once again in 2011.

Nora Mahon Olivares is a native of Longford, Ireland but has spent over forty years in the US, mostly in San Antonio, Texas where she currently lives with her husband Horacio and two grandchildren. She graduated from the University of the Incarnate Word with a B.A. in English and Latin followed by an M.A. in English from Fordham University, New York. She did her post-graduate work at the University of Texas in San Antonio. She is Professor Emeritus of English at San Antonio College where she taught for twenty- ﬁ ve years and had the distinction of being nominated six times for the Piper Award for Teaching Excellence. She has been published in several anthologies of poetry and presented poetry workshops in her community. She is the author of two poetry books to date: Burials, Bridges, & Blessings and its sequel Soulscapes.

Joseph A. Parente is a consultant who conducts organizational research on workplace issues through interviews, focus groups and formal surveys. He has an MA in Psychology from City College of the City University of NY, and has completed Doctoral level coursework at the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University. He is currently working on a collection of short stories focused on a young altar boy in a small Italian parish.

Sarah Rehfeldt lives in western Washington with her family. She is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her most recent publication credits include: The Awakenings Review; Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction; DailyHaiga; and Sketchbook.

Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, retired in 1998 from a thirty- one year career in social service and adult criminal justice, and has since that time published thirteen collections of poems. His most recent collection, The Skin of Light, was recently released by Dalton Publishing (Austin), and A Murder of Crows is forthcoming from the

111 W INDHOVER

Virtual Artists Collective in 2011. Among the numerous prizes and awards he has received for his poetry are the 2004 Violet Crown Award (Writers’ League of Texas), 2003 Western Heritage Award (National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum), two Texas Review Poetry Prizes (2001 and 2004), and a $2,000.00 grant from The Ron Stone Foundation for the Enhancement and Study of Texas History. His poetry has also received three Pushcart Prize nominations, a Poets’ Prize nomination (West Chester University), and ﬁ ve Spur Award Finalist citations (Western Writers of America). His Web site address is www.LarryDThomas.com.

112

Windhover A Journal of Christian Literature Volume 15 • April 2011

EDITORS D. Audell Shelburne Helen Kwiatkowski Joe R. Chrsitopher Jenny Bell Michael Hugh Lythgoe Beth Melles POETRY Mark E. Harden Larry D. Thomas Karla K. Morton Joan Mazza Vicki Collins Mary Jo Balistreri Philip C. Kolin Alan Berecka Sherry Craven J. Paul Holcomb Christopher Anthony Fahy Jim Davis Catherine L’Herisson Douglas G. Campbell Michael Hugh Lythgoe Sarah Rehfeldt Nathan Brown Barbara Crooker Lyman Grant Alan Birkelbach Joe R. Christopher David Craig Donna Bowling Nora M. Olivares Chet Corey Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

PROSE: FICTION, ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS, AND REVIEWS Jacqueline Kolosov Kelly Cherry Elizabeth Bruce Sørina Higgins Joseph A. Parente Michael Hugh Lythgoe Hannah Heath Johnson Barbara Crooker Mary Chandler ARTWORK John S. Hancock Johanna Mueller