By Robert Kelly

The best part is waiting,
watching the sky,
how it shimmers on the river
then soars back home.

2.
When you sit by the river
you naturally think of home,
childhood home, mother time,
everything to be learned again
in a new way, new language,
but the swans are still white,
you almost know who they are.

3.
Need water,
some of us,
every day,
not swallow
to lubricate
the soft machine
but to see,
see every day
the waves of genesis.

4.
Some choose
to go to church
in kayaks or canoes.
I prefer to sit
quiet on the shore,
all river and no me.
Effortless liberation,
swimming heavenward
on patience alone.

5.
I think when Jesus said
if you want to pray
go alone into the inmost
room and pray to the father
He also meant go down
to the river, pray to the mother.

6.
But they forgot to write it down
maybe they waited so we
could find our way to water
over the deserts of the rational.

7.
If I could
I would kneel
by the water’s edge
and whisper
Mother, mind me!
then rest there and wait.
The best part is waiting.

by Mike Bove

I call in the ghosts
and tell them to listen

for once. We come to
an understanding:

I no longer need
their chatter. We agree

1 can move to
the window, open it,

and after the last
has wafted out, stay

to watch them
become rain.

by Thomas Feeny

It has been two weeks now
Milky eyes no longer sink into
your skull
Your loose gaze strains to focus
in the weak afternoon light that
drifts through half–closed blinds
In the room’s every corner,
the cutting smell of hospital
All day a sour taste has raked your tongue,
so that you find few holy words
— just ten million dust motes,
swirling furiously
Concentrate. Listen to their story

by Thomas Feeny

On the star–studded day
you hit the state lottery,
feeling oh so biggity
— puffed up like
a daddy penguin — you step
into O’Hara’s, yell for a tall one,
and for one bubbly millisecond
escape the need
to nail your shadow to a cross

All celestial signs proclaim
it’s time: the moment
to doff your grungy gray,
smile a bit, dig out your wallet
& spring for a round all around

To that you agree, but much
like your pa, eternal seeksorrow,
although grinning on the outside
you cannot help but chide
elusive fortune
for four long decades of delay