An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: hope (Page 2 of 2)

Pilgrim

Poetry by Rob Lowe

I like clocks, and books, and music,
Things which structure the way forward,
Are signposts and dwelling places.

Map-reading living is my hobby;
But exploring the nature of being
Requires a compass of faith.

I am waterproofed with hope,
My thoughts are warm but breathable;
I am well-equipped for the journey.

And when at last the sun goes down
After a walk through mountain terrain,
I pitch a tent of morality.

I have no home, nor family,
My friends are birds and beasts and trees;
They talk to me nightly.

I saw a harvest once, of people,
Crowded on a plain below;
And in the midst there was a steeple

And what tolled from its Sunday bell?
There is no lasting peace until
Religion consists of poetry.


Rob Lowe has written privately for many years, but only lately started submitting pieces for publication. Typical work can be found in recent issues of Lucent Dreaming, Libretto, Seventh Quarry, Aromatica Poetica, and some anthologies. He lives in Milton Keynes in the U.K.

At Dawn Where Two Worlds Meet

Nonfiction by Hope Nisly

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
-Rumi

The light of early morning is magic, pure and simple and full of possibility. I believe this, even when I am rudely jolted awake by the ring of my phone and it is barely light out. A voice asks, “Can you be ready in five minutes? I’ll pick you up. I want to show you something.” Because the voice belongs to the quietest of my five brothers, the one who seldom displays strong emotion or succumbs to any hint of urgency, I respond quickly and without a clue of what might be coming.

Now here we stand quietly at the fence row of a neighbor’s farm. We are looking out over a convocation of bald eagles, at minimum forty, that landed in a field newly-covered with the aromatic debris from a farmer’s barnyard. I take a deep breath and hold it, as if any movement or sound might obliterate the tranquility of this early morning tableau.

In several weeks, this field will be covered with green shoots pushing up through the rich, muck-covered soil. This morning, however, it is covered only with majestic birds that swoop and peck at the dung, hunting for a mischief of mice or a labor of voles too slow to evade their talons of death. The eagles, so recently snatched back from the edge of extinction, ignore our curiosity.

In the pink glow of the rising sun, our shoes damp with dew, all hints of our political differences have faded into the shadows of this flood of early light.

Words are superfluous in this light. Side-by-side, we stand in silence and solidarity and hope, basking in this breath-taking view of these birds of prey. I am content to stand quietly in the lengthy early-morning shadow cast by my brother, this quiet man whose soul is full of love for all living things, who wants to share this with me just because I am; just because he is; just because we are.


Hope Nisly is a retired librarian living in Reedley, California where she gets up early to catch the full moon going down and watch the sun rising in its wake. Her writing has appeared in Mojave River Review, Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, and Persimmon Tree. Her stories have aired on Valley Writers Read, a program of the local NPR-affiliate station.

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