Poem: Helen

Helen by Amanda WenischI read your life like a poem to solve,analyzing the images before me. There I am in the tiny bathroom off your kitchen, memorizingthe make-up bottle of ivory. There I am, finding you in blue birds.You – fair and freckled-red.You – bruised and blackberry-stained. There you are at the table, eatingfried fish. […]

Poem: Yardwork

Yardwork Do not rush to mow the lawn, dear– The bees are on the clover blooms; A Cabbage White drinks from a dandelion. Are they not angels too? Is their feeding not holy? And all we have to do is do nothing– The Kingdom is at hand! Placed in motion at the onset of creation– […]

Plantin’

When I last published something here on Ash Wednesday, I had plans for other Lenten writings. At the very least, something for Holy Week. Every draft fell short. They were reactionary things; I was angrily, at best, and haughtily, at worst, responding to things I was reading or hearing or seeing in my life. Nothing […]

the Imposition

Shaking out the cobwebs with an Ash Wednesday meditation. In my driveway, earlier today, when I left my car after a grocery trip, I heard an uproarious squawking. I looked up and spotted the hawk that’s been frequenting our neighborhood perched high in my neighbor’s oak tree. A few limbs over, a smaller bird — […]

Publication Notice

I am over-the-moon excited to share that my poem “You Shall Feed Her” is in the 2020 issue of From the Depths by Haunted Water Press. Digital copies are available for free and print issues are available for purchase by clicking here. The entire issue is so lovely and features so much great work. My […]

Wait and hope

Gladiolus grow from corms, not bulbs, like I have always assumed. There is a difference as explained by this article on The Spruce, “…true bulbs are divided into layers (think of an onion), including a papery outer layer. Corms are not divided in this way; rather, they are solid units.” I have learned too that rhizomes […]