4

APRiL 2024

AS SURELY AS THE SUN LiTERARY

 AS SURELY AS THE SUN
LiTERARY JOURNAL

ISSUE IV | APRiL 2024

Copyright © 2024 As Surely As the Sun Literary

surelyasthesun.weebly.com
e-mail: [email protected]
 CONTENTS

Editor’s Note 6

POETRY

Kaleigh Bowie
The Dedication 8
Cedars of Lebanon 10
Vessels of Sacrifice 12

Brianne Holmes
Mistakes Were Made 13
The Great Divorce 14
Water 15

Justin Cordova
The Thirteenth Psalm 17
Virginity Bemoaned 19

Michael Zysk
Cosm: No. 18, 19, 20, 21, & 22 20

Jorden Blucher
Devotion 27

Kaley Hutter
Yes 28

Chase Strawser
Tattoos 29
Habakkuk Sonnet 31
Exodus Sonnet 33

Benjamin Schmitt
Wages of Struggle 34

Jacob Friesenhahn
Holy Saturday 35

Justin Lacour
Gaudete Sunday 36

Nicole Bird
Poured Out For Hollywood Rapture 40

Frank Desiderio
To Surrender To a Sacrament 42
Hymns 43

Emily Heilman
We Started Being Human 44
The Bells At Dusk 46

Anna Khoo
Hope 47

Michael Shoemaker
Our Solitary Sailboat 48

Angela Hoffman
Maker, Lover, Keeper of All Things 51
NONFiCTiON

Ron Bullis
Three Church Door Hinges Reflecting Movements of the Christian Spirit 23

Jodi Goforth
On Soundless Trees and the Deepest Question of the Universe 37

ViSUAL ART

Jacob Bredle
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem As King cover
EDiTORʼS NOTE
…

I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the
scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I
wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.
~ Revelation 5:2-4 ~

In Revelation chapter 5, we are given an image that is deeply emotional and beautifully
paradoxical.
In the previous passage, John is given a vision of the throne room in heaven. He sees
God sitting on the throne with many magnificent creatures gathered around Him, offering
ceaseless worship and praise. It is a stunning and perfect glimpse into the spiritual realm—a
sight God had chosen to reveal to only a few prophets in the past.
And yet, in the following chapter of the account, John’s awe appears to be undermined
by a sudden, overwhelming sense of grief over what he sees next. In the right hand of God is a
scroll. Written on it is God’s righteous judgment. Fastening it closed are seven seals.
An angel’s challenge echoes throughout the heavens and the earth: who is worthy to
open the scroll?
At this point, I like to imagine a resounding silence engulfing all of God’s created order.
I picture John waiting eagerly, his breathing perhaps becoming heavier beneath the suffocating
lack of an answer. I see the moment he begins to weep as the final cracking of the ice. Upon
realizing that no one in creation can open the scroll, he plunges into the cold and murky waters
of despair. He weeps and weeps.
For if the scroll could not be opened, and God’s perfect justice not achieved, then surely
the world would continue to be ruled by sin and plagued with suffering and death.
Christians have always mourned over, as Paul puts it, this present darkness. The
prospect of it never being at last entirely overcome must have been all but defeating to John.
I like to imagine the immeasurability of John’s joy when in the next verse he is told by
one of the elders to weep no more. To instead look and see— “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals” (5:5).
What hope and peace and joy must come from knowing that there is one who is worthy.
One who is equal with God Himself, begotten from the Father before all ages, incarnate in the
fullness of time. One and only one, whom we know as Jesus Christ.
In the next few verses of John’s account, the beautiful and almost paradoxical facets of
Christ’s identity are put on full display.
 The elder refers to Him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David. These
titles conjure an image of a messiah who is powerful and mighty, one who can trace His lineage
back to renowned men of old, who is the undeniable fulfillment of ancient prophecies.
Certainly, Christ is all this, and more.
But what does John see when he looks to where the elder beckons? A great lion, roaring?
A king clothed in white and gold? Near the beginning of Revelation Jesus appeared to John in
such a form. But here, in the throne room of heaven where Christ’s praises are never ceasing,
what does John see?
“A lamb, looking as if it had been slain” (5:6).
This, Christ is, too.
Christ is the Lion, and Christ is the Lamb. Christ is a king, and Christ chose to come to
His people “humble, and mounted on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Christ is highly exalted in
heaven, and Christ was high and lifted up on a cross.
More than exegesis is needed to grasp the complexity and brilliancy of Christian
theology. The angels themselves did not profess the truth about Christ solemnly, but created
with it a worshipful hymn. John records, “They sang a new song, saying:

You are worthy to take the scroll

and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9).

One day all Christians will learn the tune to which this song was sung, and join gladly in its
singing. Until that day, though, we have been gifted with the ability to compose our own music,
craft art, and write poetry in praise of Him who sits on the throne and the Lamb who is the
only one worthy of opening the scroll.
With this chief end in mind, I am pleased to now introduce the fourth issue of the As
Surely As the Sun literary journal.

Soli Deo gloria,

Natasha Bredle
Editor-in-Chief
THE DEDiCATiON
Kaleigh Bowie

Solomon prayed on his knees,

shouting to Yahweh
to be pleased and come dwell
in their midst,
in the house they’d built.

Trumpets, tambourines,
drums thumbed in welcome,
blaring to break
through blue atmosphere,

purple, ringed fingers

stretched in praise,
calloused hands,
stomping boots,

Hiram holding
his aged mother’s hand,
singing with the band
and leaning against
Boaz;

priests slashing,
cymbals crashing,
girls trained to dance
leaping through each sash;

red Jerusalem filled with hearts

racing to see their God.

Holy Spirit rushing in

a hot wind of fire,
setting ablaze each
cheek, flash of orange in
three million eyes
consuming thousand-strong sacrifices.

Emmanuel has arrived.

CEDARS OF LEBANON
Kaleigh Bowie

Bird-songs echo, cutting

through green needle layers
packing Lebanon’s floor
and webbing its skies,
cutting clean through April’s
baby blue air where
cedars’ ridge-wrapped
strength stands safe,

till Israeli lumberjacks

10,000 strong tramp
through the forest, whistling
harmony to Oriole
while Shrike laughs
that they’re off-tune.

Thirty Hebrew
dialects sound while the
temple’s walls, floors, and doors
in original form fall heavily
in hallelujah.
Maybe Yahweh thought then
of Jesus falling for a new temple
in our hearts, built of love,
overlaid in grace. Does wood remember?

Will you, cedar, worship too when

priests’ incense swings sweet your way
and the light of seventy candlesticks
reflects on your bare face?
Or will you whisper curious and taunted
beneath your gold overlay—peeking into
God’s presence?

Will the Spirit seep through the cracks

to thank you for your service?
VESSELS OF SACRiFiCE
Kaleigh Bowie

Pedaling
around and around,
water slipping against palms,
seeping through braced
fingers—water to hand, hand to clay,
clay to wheel,
wheel to drumming foot.

The shape rises and descends

in bows; the potter teaches
purpose in the making.
Sticky hands embrace
the form meant to catch
dripping crimson,
somber liquid

hot like the sinner’s shame,

the shepherd’s sorrow,
and the Creator’s aching wrath.
MiSTAKES WERE MADE
Brianne Holmes

Stretch that union foot by foot, inch by concrete inch.

We will hear of it
in yesterday’s news, certainly
by the day before yesterday.
This is unconscionable, we will say,
once we are wracked and curled
around an overpass.
Consult the stammering prophet,
who lifts his eyes to satellites
and reads the portents of three hundred million
strongly held opinions.
Cling to the future, go on;
but that history will stretch in one direction only—
toward a reckless wrecking of the clock,
deftly deafening the truth,
that mindless mining of the soul.
THE GREAT DiVORCE
Brianne Holmes

A parting glow that blackens trees

turns separate blades of grass to shadows,
different futures each,
which for an instant might have been—
or so it seemed.

The earth cannot spin back,

but what has been will be again—
but not, perhaps, for me.

Together we go walking through the woods

of pine and aspen, juniper and spruce
toward one great certainty of change:
to shaking off of mortal blood,
to sunlight on the other side of day.

Though what I lacked will not be counted,

though what I had did not suffice,
still what I gain will stand upon the earth.

Across the sky time stretches out,

an ancient tree with little sap,
a pitcher falling toward the ground,
a chord prepared to snap.
WATER
Brianne Holmes

Sunless waves sleep not

but seek pleasant mornings
and warmer shores
to the left of twilight.

Water is pale.
She hears sad tales
of perfection lost
in a land of rotten fruit,
ripening to rain.

Wake to the dirge,

bright with morning,
a young world, a new curse
an antediluvian vine.

Water is spent.
She crawls to her bed
and sleeps
while the new trees grow
over hearts of stone.

Sunless waves sleep not

laced in ice and curled
against the darkened
bookends of the world.

Water is gaunt.
She longs for rest
on far-off shores,
rest for the laborer,
rest for time.
Wake not the night
till Perfection arrives.
THE THiRTEENTH PSALM
Justin Cordova

One has to wonder at the plight

of the Jewish people, at their forbearance
in spite of circumstance, their hope
in the face of misery.

How long must they wait, O Lord?

How many knew this psalm of David by heart?

These words so pregnant with anguish,
with stark abandonment,
yet consummated by the hope of their people
and a praise for the goodness
of their God.

Will they be forgotten forever?

How often were these lines recited in the ghettos of Warsaw?

Or in cattle cars, passing through the frigid hearts and landscapes of Europe?
Or during death marches en route to death camps?
This psalm was their hope, their boon,
a talisman written and passed between the fences,
an inheritance preserved for the sake of their children,
a silent prayer from an unfailing heart,
whispered inaudibly by slowly failing lips.

How long will your face be hidden from them?

They were patient, expectant;

reveling within their promised deliverance,
transcending in prayer the death that flourished about them.
They recited this thirteenth psalm
at Auschwitz and at Dachau,
inside death camps and gas chambers,
before firing squads and unmarked graves.
Their hearts still trusted in salvation, in love;
the love of their Father who would surely provide.
They were singing God’s praises, thanking him
for his benevolence as they were led to their slaughter,
towards gallows, and into shallow ditches purposed for their interment.
Their deliverance came only in death.
ViRGiNiTY BEMOANED
Justin Cordova

Much is made of the faith of Abraham, of his almost

sacrificing Isaac on an altar, his almost
surrendering his only heir, his almost
that was interrupted by the ram in the thicket.

But what of the daughter of Jephthah,

for whom history did not record a name?
(No appellation was required beyond her sex
and paternalia, for society did not value her further.)

Going beyond almost, she went all the way

to her own sacrifice, sentenced to death by the whims of her father;
slaughtered by his words for greeting his return from battle,
and dancing for the joy of his victories.

She did not appear to struggle, did not question her verdict,
only bemoaned her youth and her virginity, before
surrendering herself to a promise made
by her father to his god. I cannot believe

that God honored this needless sacrifice,

that he was pleased by the blood that bubbled in her
veins while her flesh returned to dust. His heart
must have broken for her. He must have cried out in agony,

bemoaning the way in which they, as we

humans so often do, used his name in vain
to justify their own selfish actions;
bemoaning her youth and virginity the way that we all ought to do.
COSM: NO. 18, 19, 20, 21, & 22
Michael Zysk

18

Our root is invisible, infinite &

eternal, concealed from us by veils
of unknowing. This is neither specter
of I know nor I don’t know.
Unknowing is faith we actualize
by restraining ourselves, just as the Infinite
does, for us to choose. Our ancestors
walked through the sea on dry land,
between walls of I know and don’t. The further
inward, the more we taper. By each
veil of ourselves we offer, You
unveil Yourself, who leads us out
the dome of Pharaoh, until nothing.
Not as we think, but as I am.

19

I am the light of the world. How

is such light that casts shadows
from stars? Light that annihilates?
If forms cannot bear the force,
they break. Myriad bangs broke
and reformed this universe, its present
state of veils the dome. The heavens
rent apart as he came up
out of the water, but he did
not break. All the while, in
the wilderness & among us,
he held this annihilating light
behind his body. On the cross,
he breathed. The universe released.

20

Release from the dome is within the soul.

John ascended within while
a prisoner of Rome. So are
we. So shall we. Rapture
isn’t physical. Two in a field:
One inside will evaporate,
the other will remain. Heavenearth
is inside out. Self-offering
is revelation. Souls with
the Lamb stay to serve. For
this hour they have come. Inside
of them, all things are new, without
need of sun or moon. They know
there is no temple, but You.

21

You never demanded animal

offerings. That was our instinct.
If so, their lives would have atoned.
But they didn’t because animals
want to live, just like us.
The whole law is karma, exacting
consequence for action, fees
for what is manifest. So
it goes in the dome ruled
by brokers who buy and sell our lives.
In place of ourselves, we sacrificed
to them. It’s easy to say he paid
the debt. Much harder to know. When he
offered himself, he shows us how.

22

How he breathed his last. His body

weight sank on the nails. Silence
fell. Rumbling below shook
above. Powers began to roil.
Shockwaves from his body broke
the dome. Its horizon vanished.
Directions dissolved. Time collapsed.
He came to. In the void,
he spread his arms and dove, a shooting
star, piercing every veil
burning in his wake. His body
molten light, his blood fire
flashing through each layer, erupting
out the other side to rise.
THREE CHURCH DOOR HiNGES REFLECTiNG
MOVEMENTS OF THE CHRiSTiAN SPiRiT
Ron Bullis

…The holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and
no one opens.
~ Revelation 3:7 ~

These church hinges hooked me from the moment I saw them. But it was only later
that I saw in them movements of the Christian spirit.

To me, they pose a paradox. They seem both inviting to the spirit and yet
intimidating at the same time. The Lord both reveals and conceals Himself.

This hinge on the Paris Notre Dame cathedral (1) is hard to miss—it was almost
startling with its constellation of iron, but inviting with its intricate, almost delicate
floral pattern. The hinge at France’s Cluny monastery (2) embodies the cross-
currents constellations of the spiritual life: the impulse to transform society and
simultaneously renovate in the inner life. The hinges here also reflect the impulse to
wait for Christ’s calling as well as to actively seek His will. Finally, the heavy hinges of
St. Matthias’ Church in Budapest (3) remind us of Christ’s enduring, steadfast life
lived out both inside and outside of our own lives.
DEVOTiON
Jorden Blucher

Pushing her cart full of belongings

a stout weathered woman
stops in the middle of the sidewalk
closes her eyes
lifting her face and hands
and begins to sway to the gospel music
drifting from the church’s open door
YES
Kaley Hutter

…And we will come to him and make our home with him.
~ John 14:23 ~

Some days God is a house guest

I sweep the kitchen for.
Man shall not see
me and live. But I am
instructed for beholding,
supposedly, one thing I ask,
to gaze through
some gossamer, moth-
eaten veil. Close the door
to the back room, lay out prostrate
the porcelain plates. What is the house
you would build In the kitchen,
for me? my roommate
unloads the dishwasher take this
and places my cup on the shelf
beside hers. I intercept
the sun from
me with wafer
eyelids. When the Son
of Man claimed to be
a homemaker, did he intend
to wash the windows?
TATTOOS
Chase Strawser

I see the stamp of You in me and everything

I know I’ll be returned to You one day but for now

it feels like I’m a love letter lost in the wind

Everyone sees something different

in this face like a wax seal
others in their cold expressions try to steal
until every smile and smirk is like an arrow
in search of a heart that used to be on my sleeve
but now it is with You for safe keeping

They don’t see your writing on the scroll of my soul

They don’t see that the writing on theirs is the same

They don’t hear the wind shout Your truths

until its voice is a hoarse roar
and the sky weeps at our indifference
pulling its hair out in electric tufts

They don’t see how many of these pages

are tear stained where many sank in them
before they got to the part where
salvation came

They don’t see how the shadow of the first man

is an ink blot with many terrors spreading
in wrong directions and how a single dab
of red corrected that error

They don’t see where we couldn’t speak

You spoke for us
took all the jabs for us that we deserved
so we could have the colorful tattoos
that make us more like You

And on your body, if one looks closer

one can see the story as it is meant to be told
and where there is bare skin
there is a love letter trying to bring
all the other lost letters home
HABAKKUK SONNET
Chase Strawser

Is there such thing as murky omniscience?

Meteoric justice to engulf some,
While others endure mere singed skin?
Where have you gone, Indivisible One?

To eyes that wax and wane, statutes fluctuate,

But glimmers on the sea cannot sink ships.
These tides to counterfeit moons do not obey;
Drown contending with your moral reflection.

One would think my watch-post and I one;

Impaled where your pen once stented my heart.
I would rather this tower should crumble,
Than be buoyant with self-appointed mortar.

Buildings cannot outgrow their foundation;

Cloud-made castles thirst for tears not their own.
Harvest organs from unearthed constellations,
‘Til dead dance above; we glitter below.

Splinters in your fingers start to flourish,

Until you burn a person for firewood.
Can you outrun the ground that nourishes?
What you cut down will bind you in its book.

Break our bones to make Your hope their marrow.

May throats cut with hunger relearn to sing.
Remnants of vultures revive to sparrows.
I prefer Your drought to their mirage spring.

Don’t squander this life an aimless wraith;

Harvest or hardship, righteous live by faith.
EXODUS SONNET
Chase Strawser

What do you see, looking towards the water?

Most will see only reflected surmise
Behold, the blood-caked mask of mine falters
Cracked, brick by brick, to a child’s smile

Branches burn in impervious songbirds

One, holds a twig that writhes in the right light
Two, makes rivers blush with early sunset
Three, makes broken beaks sing like mountain peaks

Frogs and flies, enchanted, dance and play

Locusts leave tiny, green, handkerchief leaves
Phantom lanterns vanish to hungry graves
Making even His shade too bright to see

Every ignored tear returns in hailstone

When they melt, hardened hearts sprout skeletons
Like the dirt throwing lightning of its own
Still, they say their dead are only sleeping

Door frame flames inextinguishable now

They leave the sinking ship and its ghost crew
Safe in gilded waves, they sing where guilty drown
Music found where joy and fear rendezvous

Will you sing with us, or hoard your gold untold?

Trade it for this song and never grow old.
WAGES OF STRUGGLE
Benjamin Schmitt

As a kid sin seemed transcendent

a stolen carton of cigarettes
and a pile of Playboys altarpieces
in my hidden attic shrine

Then I grew up and read about

the corrupt politician
the internet scammer
quotidian cruelties of the hopelessly bored

And I realized all those harsh landscapes

dull farms
I was trying to escape
were the only places that offered peace

White fields kissed

white skies in winter trenches
a barren tree held out skeletal arms
stuffing its face with handfuls of delicious wind

Happiness is twin to a darkness

birthed by pursuit
and comfort is nothing more
than the pillow’s suffocation

So grabbing my burden
I carried it to that cold dawn
always here but never promised
hurting my eyes with the joyful light of struggle
HOLY SATURDAY
Jacob Friesenhahn

to live this way forever would be torture

what you want is to die
temporarily
long enough for life to miss you
to wonder where you’ve gone
to notice the singular emptiness
long enough for you to miss life
family and friends first
then one by one every enemy
down to the worst
to die and be dead
long enough for life to disperse
amplifying your virtues
rendering your vices vague
to die and hide under the earth
long enough for life to forgive you
long enough for you to forgive life
and to want it all over again
to die
just temporarily
just long enough
to resurrect
GAUDETE SUNDAY
Justin Lacour

May this please You in some small way:

I have dragged myself and three young children
once again to ten-thirty mass.
My kids squirm in the pew,
old people get up and move, and Lord,
I feel I’m just waking up
from a great darkness, so now,
I want to be a father forever,
want to be with my wife,
even in the boredom of stories we already know,
and all the trouble making new stories.
I will no longer treat boredom as a problem to solve, no,
let me sit on this hard bench,
and stand when others stand,
and sing for the bread I by no means deserve.
The hour will come when You ask Do you
love me? And what will I say?
I do love You, sporadically and not well,
but I do love You.
I wish there were tears, tears, and screams,
and groveling and more tears.
I’d know I really mean it this time.
ON SOUNDLESS TREES AND THE DEEPEST
QUESTiON OF THE UNiVERSE
Jodi Goforth

Philosophy is funny. When one asks, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around
to hear it, does it make a sound?” a more pragmatic person might answer, “Well, it
would depend on how you define sound. Is it self-existent, or only present
concerning a human’s five senses? Does sound even exist when taking humans out of
the equation? It’s like asking whether water is wet.”
A philosopher, on the other hand, adorned with his royal blue robe and shiny
monocle, will indubitably answer this question in a way that instills a paralyzing
feeling of existential dread in even the most optimistic person. “Reality is merely an
illusion based on human perception,” the philosopher says, in his matter-of-fact,
tactless fashion. “If there is no human to witness the phenomenon, the tree and the
sound simply do not exist.” One might ask how I, a starving, emotionally unstable,
and sleep-deprived college student, could possibly have the qualifications to attempt
to tackle the deepest mysteries of the universe—and I don’t.
But nevertheless, I will.
A hypothetical tree stands slanted in a rural evergreen forest in Washington.
One can imagine the haze of a sloping fog over the canopy after it has rained recently,
the quiet beauty of a place completely devoid of humanity, the only sounds being a
birdsong lulling the other forest creatures to sleep and rainwater dripping from
leaves—the perfect backdrop for a Bon Iver song. A gust of wind catches the branches
of the mighty trees, which sends pine needles flurrying in the damp evening air. On
the hill, an old Western White Pine begins to list to the right; this breeze is the final
straw for the tree; its last breath of life. There are no humans for hundreds of miles,
not one to hear it topple. This is not the death scene of the tragic Shakespearean hero;
the only audience is the hypothetical family of bears camping nearby. Insignificantly,
unceremoniously, the tree begins to fall.
Down, down, down it goes. It has been said that the bigger you get, the farther
you fall. This particular tree is almost a century old, so it has quite a bit of falling to
do
do. The bigger the fall, the louder the sound—a typhoon wave slamming into the
wharf. Backlit by the setting sun, the tree crashes to the forest floor. Does it make a
sound?
Thus, the human race is faced with quite the dilemma—to be or not to be? asks
us humans. Who is right? So far, I have mentioned the pragmatist and the
philosopher, but there is a third view: what I will be referring to as the Pious Faithful
(a term of my own conjuring). The conversation between the Pious Faithful and I
might unfold like so:
“A tree falls in the forest,” I begin, “and neither you nor I are around to hear it,
so who’s to say if it makes a sound at all?”
The Pious Faithful smiles wisely; she wears white, her eyes harboring an almost
ethereal peace, as if she knows something I do not. “The falling tree makes a sound
because all falling things make sounds. Whether you are there to see it or not, the air
molecules make vibrations—these vibrations are what make sound.”
I shrug, not yet convinced. “Vibrations do not know of sound. Sound is a
result of a human hearing it—the way exams give results, but you don’t know the
results until you take the exam.”
“I know that when trees fall, they make sounds. Just because I’m not there to
hear it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
The Pious Faithful smiles once more. “Because I believe in it.”
The ideation of a hypothetical tree that hypothetically falls is not, to the Pious
Faithful, pragmatist, or philosophical. It is a leap of faith. If it takes the same amount
of faith to believe that a tree makes a sound as it falls in an uninhabited forest, far
away and all alone—the imagined swish of crushing leaves and reverberating thump
of the trunk as it hits the ground—as believing in an omnipresent, all-knowing being
who resides in a utopian cloud kingdom somewhere outside of space and time, who
crafted each human in the same way a potter molds a vase, then it takes a giant leap. If
the Pious Faithful can believe it, contrary to the pragmatist and philosopher’s
opinion, then it makes sense that she also has the capacity to believe in God. She
knows because she knows—that is all faith is. It is knowing even without seeing; if
goo good
you can know, inexplicably, that the tree makes that thump when it falls, then you are
already halfway there.
Does that answer the question?
POURED OUT FOR HOLLYWOOD RAPTURE
Nicole Bird

Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.

~ Luke 22:31 ~

I’ve been harvested

under an extinguished sun—
hibiscus budded into stone
pollen sown to dissipate,
no lineage // no home.

I’ve been reduced

to filaments, rubbed between palms
all light snuffed, no smoke
to provide evidence that
there was once fire.

I’ve been consumed,

kernels crushed under gnashing teeth
desperate to milk the grain
of any gold left; gilded blood
too viscous to dry.

I’ve been seduced—

stars plucked and placed under glass
possession the greatest drug,
too fatigued to resist the touch
of a familiar devil.

I’ve been forgotten

as I rushed to be taken,
yanked from the soil
because then it would mean

I made it.

I’ve been betrayed:

when I offered my soul
I thought I would get more in return.
Calloused heels and a tired mouth;
retinas burnt // squint to see
the precipice ahead.

I’ve been sacrificed

to a god long worshiped
before I ever arrived in an arid land thought barren,
the only riches must be siphoned
from the veins of those who still dream.

I’ve been sifted.

Portioned
for feast, revelry // bacchanal
cups raised at my fall
the empty wind beneath me,
the perfect angle to witness the last slurp.
TO SURRENDER TO A SACRAMENT
Frank Desiderio

To surrender to a sacrament
is to open
to be swept
clean
away
in a flood
to feast with friends on a spring fresh shore
to never again have to carry a burden to exhaustion
to be joined and pressed
to be rebuilt again and again and again
to give in ways unforeseen
to be an open grave
in the row of your generation.
HYMNS
Frank Desiderio

The squeak of the walker wheels

starts out in the parking lot,
advances slowly through the door
and down the center aisle.

The quick loud clicks of the three-year-old girl’s hard shoes

as she goes back and forth between the first pew
and the edge of the sanctuary, walking up,
testing her limits, and then running back.

The dominant chord from the choir

of crying babies and fussy children
mixes with the minor tones of rustling bulletins,
the zipper of a purse
and the passing of toys and baggies of Cheerios
and above them all the bleeps and songs of ringtones.

These are the hymns of the faithful,

counterpoint to the prayer book songs,
that you, Dear One,
listen to so diligently
while I fume impatiently.
WE STARTED BEiNG HUMAN
Emily Heilman

I swallowed all
my sticks and stones,
so as to stop giving my
enemies back their weapons.

And when I stopped,

I saw how they would bleed,
and bleed, still swinging,
empty hands and bloody fists—

I started handing them

band-aids and gauze
for their scratches and scrapes.
We found new ways to live, still broken.

I started saying I’m sorry

and I started being sorry.
I started being human
so we started being human.

We picked up. We brushed each other off.

There were things to be said, and
we were finally saying them.
We were free.

With that freedom, we could go.

We could fill our lives with mercy,
with the image of God, forgiving.
We spread faster than our disease.

When my solemn heart was filled

and whole, there were places to go,
places we had built from
all our sticks and stones.
THE BELLS AT DUSK
Emily Heilman

You can hear the bells at dusk

over the matte glazed hills of the French Alps.
Cattle clanging, clamoring on toward pasture.
A transient fame entices them on the night wind
coming down from the mountains,
cooled by distant white peaks, unreachable.
What truly little progress they make toward snowy stars
is, we hope, meaningful, or else we ever remain optimistic.
Yet the bells ring in dark stillness toward one destination:
loud with denial, the cattle carry on toward pasture.
HOPE
Anna Khoo

Hope
Slips in at the end of a long day
and sits with me
in the stillness for a while
Looks me in the eye
I wonder, what he seeks in me
that we meet like this
at the ending of things

I have nothing to offer

this welcome guest
save echoes of laughter and tears
we wait a while
for those to subside
and still hope is here

I know it happens every day somehow

that hope finds me
I do not know why
He does not leave
as the last tears fall
as I unburden my soul

Hope looks for me

and I am found

and we wait together for the morning to come

OUR SOLiTARY SAiLBOAT
Michael Shoemaker

the flag flies taut

winds howl horror
ropes beat the pole
at Portland Head Light

in the distance
there is a speck
a twelve-foot sailboat
two body lengths
bobbing as the sea roils
in a slate cauldron
with the taste of fear
of capsizing and crushing
against Maine’s
perilous shore

will this sailor

make it to the shore
safely?

I’ll never know

the sailboat disappears
beyond my sight

will we make it?

our Captain calls

“Feed my sheep”
with pierced feet
firmly fixed
on the granite coast

we will, through Him

faith’s heartbeat
tells me so
MAKER, LOVER, KEEPER OF ALL THiNGS
Angela Hoffman

There is so much in the news that breaks your heart.

I’ve long stopped chasing the extra-ordinary,
but wonder now if it’s even appropriate to celebrate
the ordinary. Happiness seems too foreboding,
yet here I am again leaning into vulnerability,
so that I might hear sorrow and joy
play their layered chords.

There it is: the wind rustling the the dead leaves to life,
the slanting sun speaking intimately in morse code;
flickering, shedding light
on the tiny acorn held in my palm.
What can this be?
 CONTRiBUTOR BiOGRAPHiES

J.C. Cordova is an anesthesiology resident at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
He thoroughly enjoys spending time with his wife, toddler, and rescue dog, along with reading
and traveling. He has been previously published in Penumbra, The Public Health Review, and
Military Medicine, with work forthcoming in Anesthesiology.

Nicole Bird work has appeared in the Angel City Review, Monadnock Underground, and
Granfalloon, among others. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she’s
currently revising a poetry collection. You can read more about Nicole at
nicolebirdthewriter.com.

Jorden Blucher is a stay-at-home dad and writer based in Vermont. He began writing poetry at
the age of 17 to process the fathering of a child and, a year later, the death of a friend. Jorden
journeys with depression and is an advocate for mental health issues.

Kaleigh Bowie is a musician, poet, and painter from West Virginia who seeks to glorify God
through her artistic expressions of the everyday. She holds a BA in English from Fairmont State
University and is a graduate of the Students for Life Hildegard Art Fellowship. Her poetry and
paintings have appeared in Fairmont State’s Whetstone literary journal. She is blessed in
marriage and has a ten-month-old daughter, Clover.

Jacob Bredle is a poet questioning his decision to study engineering at the University of
Cincinnati. In his free time he enjoys drawing and painting, model making, playing guitar and
biking. Homemade applesauce is rumored to be his favorite delicacy.

Ronald Bullis, Ph.D., has published one volume of poetry, photographs, and dozens of
poems, non-fiction books and academic articles. He won a Hart Crane and Taproot poetry
contest. He has been an ordained minister for 40 years serving in psychiatric hospitals, prisons
and in the parish.

Frank Desiderio served as a pastor, campus minister, and author (Can You Let Go of a Grudge,
Paulist Press, 2014). He produced the film Judas for ABC TV (2004). His poems have
incredible
appeared in the Spring Hill Review, Windhover, Ars Medica, among other journals. He lives in
Manhattan.

Jacob Friesenhahn teaches religious studies and philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake
University in San Antonio.

A veteran English teacher-activist and faith leader of a mystical Christian tradition, Michael
Zysk lives to connect. Reach out to him @michaelzysk or [email protected].

Jodi Goforth is a senior who studies writing at Liberty University. She writes for her
university's newspaper, the Liberty Champion, and is pursuing a career in developmental
editing and creative writing. She spends an absurd amount of time drinking iced coffee and
imagining instead of actually writing.

Emily Heilman is a Minneapolis-based storyteller, grateful to have had opportunities to

explore her faith and vocation in writing through fellowships with the Consortium of Christian
Study Centers and Anselm House at the University of Minnesota. She’s been published in The
Tower, Loomings Magazine, and Between Cities.

Angela Hoffman lives in Wisconsin. With her retirement from teaching and the pandemic
coinciding, she took to writing poetry. Her poetry has been widely published. Angela’s
collections include Resurrection Lily 2022, Olly Olly Oxen Free 2023, and Hold the Contraries,
forthcoming 2024 (Kelsay Books).

Brianne Holmes lives in Upstate South Carolina where she works in marketing and
communications. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including the North
Carolina Literary Review, The Twisted Vine, Monkeybicycle, and the Journal of Microliterature.
Another of her stories is forthcoming in Relief.

Kaley Hutter is a poet and theatre maker from Charlottesville, Virginia. Her work has
previously appeared in LAMP and Riverview Artspace’s Beat Burg project. She teaches college
composition, paces when she reads, and searches for divine signals hidden in everyday
encounters. You can find her spoken word on Instagram @notiwhospeak.

Anna Khoo is a data journalist who started on a newspaper and poked at some numbers one
hello
day. She’s now at the Office for National Statistics. Aside from writing, she enjoys playing piano,
singing, park walks, and chats over tea. She lives in Hampshire with her two axolotls.

Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans with his wife and three children, and edits Trampoline: A
Journal of Poetry. He is the author of Hulk Church (Belle Point Press 2023).

Benjamin Schmitt is the author of four books, most recently The Saints of Capitalism. His
poems have appeared in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The Good Men Project, Hobart, Columbia
Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he lives in Seattle
with his wife and children.

Michael Shoemaker is a poet, photographer and writer from Magna, Utah where he lives with
his wife and son. He is the author of a poetry/photography collection Rocky Mountain
Reflections (Poets’ Choice, 2023). His poetry has appeared in Blue Lake Review, The High
Window, Seashores Haiku Journal, and The Penwood Review.

Chase Strawser is a writer from Columbus, Ohio. After earning a BA in English at

Muskingum University and being the 2015 featured writer in their literary magazine First
Circle, Chase published as a freelance reporter. Chase received his MAEd from Mount Vernon
Nazarene University in 2021 to help future writers.