Betty Nichols
Inspiration piece

Old Dominion Drive
By Amy Moffitt
Response

The last time I drove this road,
I was singing at the top of my lungs to the full moon,
Singing to her about love
…….about longing
………….about saving my own life.

I used to laugh at people like me.

I learned how to sing to the moon
in the company of women,
women whose lives were moved by the moon,
and who knew well enough to notice it,
and we sang to her as a sister,
…….as a mother,
………….as a friend.

Last time I drove this road,
I sang to the moon,
and she heard me,
and she sang back with her clear silvery light.

I used to laugh at women like me.

Years ago, I drove down this road,
shaking, terrified,
prisoner to a world
that ridicules what it doesn’t understand.
Something inside of me was dying,
and it cried out,
under the old dominion of cynicism.

I was taught to be afraid of mystery,
but mystery is where the magic is,
and magic is where women meet together,
singing.

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Chandra Achberger
Inspiration piece

Never
By Amy Moffitt
Response

You may forget me,

(you have, in so many ways

and so many times

forgotten me so completely)

but I will never forget you…

kneeling in the graveyard

with your tracing paper

using black charcoal

to copy the stones.

I walked some distance away

and contemplated you,

long legs folded to the earth,

long arms making moving white lines

against the dark green of

the graveyard bushes.

The wind blew,

(or at least I think it did),

and though I know that at that moment

(as in every moment of my life)

I carried shame for what I was not

and disappointment with the world

I remember this as perfection,

the most beautiful and pure expression

of whom we would always truly be,

you the quiet artist, with the eye for the other,

me the driver, helping you

and standing back on the side of the hill,

holding my breath,

in awe of you.

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Lisa Pimental
“345”
Inspiration piece

Why You Should Drift
By Amy Moffitt
Response

Look.

The lemon-yellow butterfly

has fluttered by and gently

returned and

dipped its head deep

into the morning glory blossom

again, and again.

Listen.

The bird on the porch rail

has the clearest, most

insistent song, it

came from nowhere

quick and bright, and

it sang to your heart

before you saw it.

Feel.

The breeze is tracing

a blessing across your forehead,

up your arms,

conspiring with sweat

to embrace and refresh you.

Taste – while you still can

the blackberry on your tongue,

its satisfying heft

giving way to a

baptism of new wine.

Smell (can you?)

the rain in the air, remember refreshment and

the gift of green leaves,

the sight of running streams,

fat and alive.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

No one was ready for this.

Ride the waves as they come…

You must drift to survive.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Inspiration Piece (song): Freedom – by Amy Moffitt

Natural Death
© KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

Leaves, such brightly-colored textiles,
Patched together like other final gifts,
A shroud of fallen moments, times gone,
Rest easy; the wind has said good-bye.

Seers, mostly desiccated, remove comfort
When wood witches’ lessons, somehow,
Destroy the quiddity of boosted insights;
Sad news spins otherworldly geometrics.

Antitinctures actualize exceptional substances,
Constructed, as they are, from branches, bugs,
Myrrh shoots, mayhap grotesque architecture;
Their associations expire bitterly if pressed.

Most fens’ are moraine, sepulchers augmented
Without wolfberry’s benefits, warm clothing,
Blankets. They meter prettied-up earnings
Unvarnished by rats’ sleep, bedbugs, death.

Atrocity’s testimony remains consequential.
Literal skeletal living, wild lessons clarified,
Expending hides, maxillae, viscera, breath,
Encourage all partakers to come as they are.

Translation
By Amy Moffitt
Response

The wall between us
is thick enough to feel.
When I speak, I see the words
bounce off of it and fly away.

If we had met as children,
would the wall still be there?
Or is it the fears we’ve gained in growing
that instinctively push us apart?

I find myself longing for translation…
the gestures I make that put you off,
your tone of voice that shuts me down
decoded, made clear and laid out.

I want to believe that beneath
our troubling layers
our hearts and desires are the same.
We just need an interpreter
to explain us to each other, and ourselves.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Jenny Mathews

Untitled – pen and ink

Inspiration piece

Everything matters

Amy Moffitt

Response piece

I live in a house that my hands didn’t build
and I walk down sidewalks that I didn’t pour
admiring trees that I didn’t plant
as I wait at a crosswalk that I didn’t paint.

I pass small shops whose signs are markers
of the dreams of someone that I’ve never met
and (perhaps) of capitalism’s crazed optimism
against all obvious odds.

In my neighborhood, small shops flower,
shimmer in sunlight, drop petals and die,
only to be replaced by others
a constant lifecycle of avarice and hope.

In your neighborhood, the wind blows through
the dried husks of businesses on withered stems,
peeling paint and dirty windows bearing mute testimony
of so many dreams abandoned.

But surely, they all still matter.

Every new sign, and layer of paint,
and shelves newly dusted and stacked
is one more strong person pushing back at the darkness,
staring level at hopelessness and shouting “stand back!”

Surely, each person whose sweat, breath and body
went into this visible sign of their hope
is a witness to wanting, to moving and acting
and believing in a world where even this matters.

As I live in this house that my hands didn’t build,
I think of the hands that did,
and the lives who marked time to build city streets,
and the ones who saw the tree when they planted the seed.

And I give thanks for every one of them
who was brave enough to believe
that the work of their hands was worth giving to others,
who created the world where I live.
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Charisse Cecil
Inspiration piece

Amy Moffitt
Response

Choose
(for Charisse)

Every day is a decision.

Tonight, the crickets sing in the bushes,
and I choose to remember you:
dreadlocks flowing and bright face,
smile beaming and that glow you had
even when anxiety tightened
the corners of your shining eyes.

Every day.

Every day since you passed on
I choose to feel, and choose to mourn.
You left before autumn started giving the leaves
back their true, vibrant colors.
You saw past my surface, down deep
where dark and vibrant colors bloom.

I choose to miss you.

Charisse, sometimes I feel like
my whole life has been me bloodying my hands
trying to tear down walls that won’t budge.
You walked through a door in the wall,
a door I’d never noticed,
and showed me the blue sky I’d ignored.

Everyday, I have a decision:
Do I see the blue sky,
0r the brick wall?
Do I choose faith, or fear?
Do I believe in what you showed me,
or do I run away again, and hide?

Every day,
despite myself,
I choose
again
to believe you.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Annie Welch

“Girl in a Box”

Inspiration Piece

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