by Ellen M. Taylor

     All are architects of Fate
     Working in these walls of Time;
     Some with massive deeds and great,
     Some with ornaments of rhyme.
          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Builders”

“During the war,” my father would say of his days
in the Philippines, “we would hang our used teabags
on a clothesline and get three days from one bag;
During the war, we would share one needle to darn
our socks, Fred Finnegan and I, one spool of thread.
During the war, we were always damp and afraid
we wouldn’t come home.

“When the war was over, we built a fire at camp,
lit the spool tables and the rickety chairs, lit
the pallets where we pitched our tents, lit the molding
cots where we slept, lit our rotting socks, threadbare shirts.
We burned anything we could find, to leave nothing
behind. And when we were stateside, our officers
told us, ‘Forget everything you’ve seen, men.
Get on with your lives.’”

My father returned home to Jamaica Plain, married
his summer girl, built his life with seven children.
Fred Finnegan went home to South Boston, married,
and one winter night when his house caught on fire
he burned with it, crawling down the hall to threads
of smoke curling under the door where his daughter lay
asleep in her crib.

“All are architects of Fate,” Longfellow wrote,
after his lengthy courtship led to married
bliss, six children rich. A decade later
while he retired for a nap nearby, the threads
of his beloved wife’s dress flared, and flamed into fire.

by Wang Ping

She doesn’t have a bone, but her whole body is integrity.
She has eight arms, three hearts, blue blood, and a plan.
Her cephalo is her pods, her limbs are her head
Making millions of cells to display fireworks of intention.
She wears thoughts on her skin, travelling
From red to purple to blue to white to dark in God’s speed.
She opens jars, steals crabs from lab tanks and frees herself into
     the sea through sewage.
She’s the master of disguise and escape artist.
She wears her dreams up in her bumpy sleeves.
She spreads her multitude intelligence through her hands
She’s a loner, but when she loves, it’s a beak to beak, 8–armed
     embrace.
She dies young, after she mates, lays eggs and watches them hatch.
She’s shed her shells in exchange for freedom, at the cost of life,
     but no matter.
Young like a newborn, older than dinosaurs,
She’s free like a bird and smart as a whip.
Her whole being has become thought, word, syntax —
Displayed from skin to skin
What you see is what you feel.
What you feel is what you see.
A circuit of intent, expression and goal
A cycle of telepathy, passion and grace
Chameleon of thought
Plume of the sea
I’m your enigma of Cabala, Dao Dejing, Heart Sutra
Ten thousand eyes in my hands
Hold your non–sense of
Time and space
Cause and effect
Beginning and end . . .
I’m your Bodhisattva
Goddess of language
Writing mercy and love
In my pure black ink
Across your continent of mind

by Wang Ping

If a blessing is a transfer of energy

Is a story the needle through our memory?

Elms, hands, sonnets . . . passing through a paper prairie

As the train glides into downtown St. Paul, a whiteout campus

Cajons, hand drums and dumplings for the Year of the Pig

No entry before 5:00, and everyone out by 6:30, says the stone–faced

     chaplain

Who could have foreseen the lies plaguing our minds and hearts?

Only good thoughts please, for all sentient beings on New Year’s Day

Pleads the Chinese poet, and every day, till our brain rewires itself

     into love fest

Students cheer when Good Heart walks in, drum on his back,

     blizzard in his hair

If matter is energy, which wave or particle or song awakens our souls?

What love makes our limbs tremble like wings of Lunar Moth?

What hand threads the story from finger to finger, mouth to mouth

Every word pregnant with fruits of memory and blessing?

by Hilton Obenzinger

A girl will lead us
A girl provokes the bullies of carbon
A girl gives Trump the willies
The world learns Asperger’s is a superpower
Time Magazine says she’s the Person of the Year
Trump boils in jealous rage and mocks her
She mocks him back
Bolsonaro calls her a brat
And strikes a match to the Amazon
A girl will speak wisdom
To a room full of clowns
She’s a fool, but not a laughing stock
She’s a fool for God
Or whatever you think hovers over our heads
Or bubbles up from the Earth’s core
But the girl is not the Messiah
She will not save us
Yet when we sing Handel’s Hallelujah
During the holidays
We will welcome her
To save us all
If that’s just one kid, imagine all the kids
Rising up and giving us a hand
A girl is not Hope but Hope is not lost
We are the ones who will bring gifts
To the Future

Stretched out in the hay of an old barn