Join us as we engage the boundary between sacred and secular through works of poetry and devotionals.
Join us as we engage the boundary between sacred and secular through works of poetry and devotionals.
Perhaps because of my formatting choices, I needed a second "Page" for the quantity of submissions in this issue. You’ll find both “Pages” listed under the navigational tabs. You’ll also find two Tables of Content, one Table for each Page. The Spring 2026 Issue, “Tensions,” is also still available for viewing (under the "More" tab). There are 31 poems and four devotionals in the Summer issue.
I have also given credit for the photographs that appear, some of which were taken by young artists. For future issues, if you would like to submit a jpeg image with a poem or devotional, I would be glad to receive it.
Thanks to each person who submitted. I wish to affirm you in your efforts to put meaningful words on the page, and I encourage you to submit to future issues.
See below for a description of the next theme. The submission window opens July 1 and extends through July 15.
--Charles A. Swanson
Spring Daffodils around the base of an oak tree, Callands, VA; photograph by Charles A. Swanson
Upcoming Themes:
July 1-15, 2026: Joy (Fall Issue)
October 1-15, 2026: Invocations, Benedictions, and Other Prayers (Winter Issue)
February 1-15, 2027: Music (Spring Issue)
May 1-15, 2027: Doubt (Summer Issue)
Some Guidance for the Fall “Joy” Submission Call:
The window for the Fall theme of “Joy" opens on July 1 and closes July 15 at midnight. Please note that we will not read poems or devotionals sent before or after that window unless we give you specific permission to send a piece early or late. Read the guidelines carefully and follow them. Keep in mind that we do not accept attachments.
“Tragedy” seems an easier subject that “Joy.” How does a writer give joy depth and color? Is joy a one-dimensional emotion, or does it exist in shades and variations? I hope that you prove it does. I also place before you this argument: joy and happiness are not the same. I would not resist a poem or devotional that seemed more happy than joyful. However, if you choose to tease the differences between happiness and joy, I might also find that dichotomy intriguing.
Perhaps a musical earwig will help your writing process. Two numbers that come to mind are “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” written to a Beethoven score, and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” most often attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. Both pieces inspire me, especially the latter. Perhaps having a joyful song in your head as you write may help. If you prefer a more recent song, you might think of “Happy” by Pharrell Williams or “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.
A little more joy could help us all in these contentious days.
CAS
Blue African Violet. Photograph by Gail Swanson
it makes sense why
it’s called that this toy, first
encountered in the nursery for some
or perhaps later in a science lab
it all starts as most things
at rest at rest at rest
then a sudden disruption
the toy has no energy, no battery of its own, it
relies on a disruptor a wind-up and a let-go proxy
setting one into another into the rest
the metal swing-set frame
shivers a little against the table but withstands
the metal balls clacking a sharp percussive knock
that cannot be stopped as one dangling
silver sphere smack smacks into
the next and the next and the next
and isn’t it nearly impossible not to become
invested in watching the pouncing
pendulums ricochet forward, back, forward,
back a little less each time, a little less
until all silvery spheres sit undisturbed
not nearly long enough—always
the lure of the next wind-up, the jostling
of young hands gathered around a lab table
pushing and pushing closer to be the closest, to be
the next to take up an outermost weighted clear wire
and just drop it
Poet’s Notes: "Newton's Cradle" flashed me back to several childhood toys that I remember filling those ambery, long days of childhood and early adolescence. While writing the poem, I was pleased to have several pleasant conversations about the toy and also glad to hear that my friends and family had some good memories associated with the kinetic toy as well. I was also surprised to learn that while I initially remember my much younger self as more of a reader/imaginative-play kid, in reality I also had plenty of kinetic toys where movement played a large role in learning about myself and about the world. I'd like to write more poems about such kinetic objects and toys in the future. It's possible that these poems are an artistic attempt to slow down just a bit the jet engine of too-swiftly-moving years.
About the Poet: Melanie Faith is a poet, writer, educator, editor, photographer, and frequent doodler. Her craft books through Vine Leaves Press offer tips on writing flash fiction, poetry, photography, teaching creative writing, and more. Check out her poetry collection, Does It Look Like Her? (2024), about a forty-something artist, and The Price of Breathing, in which a librarian, a love triangle, and the iron lung all make appearances (Vine Leaves Press, fall 2026). Learn more about Melanie’s classes and creative work at: https://www.melaniedfaith.com/ .
Newton's Cradle. Drawing by Charlie Crawley
Too bad it had to end like this.
Everyone was having so much fun.
It’s hard to know just what we’ll miss
from all our aging in the sun.
Everyone was having so much fun,
dancing to the sound of music
while slowly aging in the sun.
We never thought that we’d get sick
and tired dancing to the sound of music,
holding our partners in our arms.
We never thought that we’d get sick
of feeling how slow rhythm charms.
Holding our partners in our arms
for as long as we could dance
that slower rhythm, we could feel its charms.
The world held magic and romance
for as long as we could dance.
Now it’s hard to know what more we’ll miss
from this world, the magic or romance.
Too bad it had to end like this.
About the Poet: After retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library, I moved out to Port Townsend, WA, and have traveled widely, preferring remote, natural settings. Since that transition, I’ve published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, Galápagos (2023), a collaborative chapbook of my son Andrew’s photographs and my poems, Nile (2024), a chapbook of poems and photographs about Egypt, Filing Order: Sonnets (2025), and CATechisms (2025), poems and photographs about my senior cat.
A Birthday Abroad
Paul J. Willis
The man was lost in Italy, where he
had gone to teach a class in poetry—
not lost, exactly, though at times he walked
the country lanes and paused in wonder, balked
by lack of understanding of the way.
His birthday came—his sixty-sixth—a stay.
Except, he did not tell his students this;
to focus on himself would be amiss
he felt, and so he kept his frigid room
and greeted all his family on Zoom.
The day before, at midnight, came a storm
of thunder and of lightning—not the norm
his students told him. Afterward he hiked
to where a butte of tufa lava spiked
the north horizon. On the very top,
a dripping forest spread its verdant mop,
and at its side a quiet chapel grew
as if it were a piece of forest too.
Inside, a spectral silence whispered what
he could not hear: The years! The years! A nut
of hazel rolled across the empty floor.
He stood and watched it, pausing in the door.
And then he fled through many a muddy field,
through crimson vineyards past their sparkling yield
of months ago, the grapes and wine all past,
and living in the lees of life at last.
from Orvieto (© Paul J. Willis, 2025), page 30,
permission to reprint granted by Paul J. Willis and Solum Literary Press, Anaheim, CA. solumpress.com
