Tora Estep
“Ruddy Crow”
Inspiration piece

Night Mood
By Lisa Bloom
Response

I listen for his coos
and wait for oxygen.
He signals his next move,
then I’m at peace again.

Then he turns on the night
like a faucet, tidal
and unrelenting, right
as I hit survival

mode. Dressed in tails, as though
we’re at a party, late
into the evening glow,
he takes my hand. Deflate

my lungs, I’m begging him.
I draw him into my
airspace, a moonlit swim
inside this mind. I sigh

and trace my finger through
the onyx mood. He’s just
a hologram, a clue,
a vision, soon to dust.

Is it all a disguise?
I’ll scream at the sky
until we’re wrapped in blue
atmosphere, and brand new.

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Tora Estep
“Golden Cocoon”
Acrylic on paper
Response

Morning Plea
By Lisa Bloom
Inspiration piece

I skipped my morning lecture, you were wrapped
within my golden quilt’s cocoon, I chose
to stay there too. You stretched your legs, your toes
brushed past my shins. A budding lily, trapped

in glass and city water, lightly tapped
by sunlight, sat behind us. You proposed
I skip my morning lecture, you were wrapped
around my will. I couldn’t much oppose

your crinkled face’s plea to stay. I mapped
my breathing’s frequency to yours, then closed
my eyes, dismissed my conscience, not imposed
by rueful thoughts of plans and schedules scrapped.
I skipped my morning lecture. You were wrapped
around my will, and I could not oppose.

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Quinzee the Artist
“When the Giants Cam0”
Pencil drawing
Response

Free New World for The Formerly Oppressed
By Darice Jones
Inspiration piece

It wasn’t until the ancestors of all the world’s people returned
that human beings living in the year 2024 saw truth again.
Many people had been hypnotized by fake news, fear, and addiction – the holy trinity –
the bread and butter of the “elite” hoarders
who would allow children to starve and be crushed just for another gold coin and the rush of power.
They had set up foundations and paperwork and soulless systems and governments and a world wide web of madness.
These rulers talked of bloodlines and genders and races and borders and
they smeared false distinctions on the tongues of everyone like peanut butter on a cracker at snacktime.
Their worldview was forced on everyone at the end of a gun’s barrel
And many many people chose to go on living rather than fall away
Never knowing if their lives or deaths had any meaning

Here we are in 2044 reflecting on our past
So near and yet so far back
While the earth rebuilds herself
And the deep sea replenishes
While the idea of borders is a thing of the past
And the makers of race are all gone
Where the resources are shared and our children and elders keep us honest
With their wisdom and laughter and making of treats

On Juneteenth of 2024
While the rulers were extracting all the life out of the planet
As was their way back then

The sky appeared to part over every town around the globe
We finally knew there was something else out there, beyond the life we’d been seeing, beyond the death we were afraid of
And these global ancestors spoke in all languages at once where everyone could hear
We all came out of whatever buildings or shelters we had been in
We all, all the people, looked up
I remember wondering if all of humanity had ever looked up at once before

We were all rapt

There was no news, were no social media posts, no word of mouth, no chatter at all
We all felt the call and we all stood, head back, soul open

And listened

They looked like all of us, they smelled, and sounded, and moved like all of us around the world
Except they were large in the sky and their voices boomed
We realized we knew all the languages
We realized we knew each other
We realized we were sent here as stewarts
We realized we were sent here to care for all living things
We realized that all things were living

We saw many souls that we knew being drawn up into the air – like the old book that described a rapture
But this culling was a removal of souls bent on destroying the planet
We realized our books, especially the spiritual ones, were not meant to hold us captive
Those at the tops of the worlds hierarchies were stopped mid-sentence as they prattled on about war, manipulation, and wealth
The ability to know sorrow returned to their souls as they floated up to meet our collective ancestral family
It seemed to rain as the tears fell from them at horrors they had overseen
They realized they were stewarts
They realized they had failed
They realized they had killed
They realized they had enslaved
They realized they had stolen
They realized they had given in to something empty
Headed nowhere

Now, in 2044, the world is loud with life
Bubbling with connection
Giggling in depth
The seas rocking back and forth to comfort those of us that were here for the shift
And we are doing the things we were sent here to do
No one able to forget where we come from
No one is lost in addiction to hoarding the things that belong to no one
The air is clean
The waters are fresh
The babies are safe
The elders are ready to become huge when it is there time
And to watch us from the far reaches of the universe
And to part the skies if they have to
To remind us what life is.

Written by Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Zora Neal Hurston 2024

© 2024

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Quinzee the Artist
“Reflected”
Digital painting
Inspiration piece

Both
By Darice Jones
Response

I am your tether and your balm
Source energy is clever that way
7 billion plus mirror-souls on this blue orb
Looking out from different eyes
Breathing one breath from different lungs
Sometimes forgetting completely that we are one life
Everything we eat, walk on, and touch is part of a cosmic whole

You help me remember

Binaries exist as part of a greater whole that moves so gracefully
Every expanding
And sometimes we cling to them, attempting to slow that movement down
Afraid we will lose all that we savour
Afraid to expand beyond what we’ve known
Afraid to remember where we came from is so much bigger
Than a straight line with two points on either end

You help me remember

The great open field of awareness and beauty that is the birthright of all
The reason tree leaves and gusts of wind dance effortlessly
Without tying themselves down with the need to control things
The need to stay forever where and as they were
Without stopping progress by lamenting the passing of a previous joy
They dance, as we all can, into the next greater joy
They shimmy into the wondrous truth of change
No reversing of course to be great again
Instead leaning in to the unknown greatness of an unencumbered and ever-opening now
That rolls into the future so fluidly that every moment is a revelation

I am so grateful that you are here
Sitting across from me
Unfolding
Becoming
Expanding
Knowing anew

You help me remember
To allow life to be more.

Written By Darice Marcella Jones
In The Year of Zora Neal Hurston, 2024

© 2024

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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.

Sky Lines
By Angi Lewis
Response

1.
I sometimes imagine
the birds leaving tracks
in the sky, a network
of crisscrossed lines
marking their flight
through such a vast, blank space.

2.
In the pale November light
in a sky feathered with clouds
you stretched your arms wide
and flew
and I am left wondering
where you have gotten to.

3.
It’s the age old question-
what happens when we die?

4.
Maybe I’m going at this all wrong
trying to imagine you in a form
you’re no longer in.

My friend says her dad, long gone
speaks to her in pennies left behind
(her mother in dimes).

I see you,
Dad, in birds
hawks on fence posts
eagles circling.

5.
Which sky lines are yours?

6.
Behind my ribs
there is a nest
of bones, of flesh
there your love rests.

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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.

Rachel Lahn
Mixed media with beach glass on wood
Response

In Her Head
By Stefanie A. Shilling
Inspiration piece

on the back wall
between her left ear and her right ear
she positioned the couch

then the ottoman smack dab in the middle
right behind her nasal cavity

on the right side of the couch
she set up an end table
with trinkets, a book and a glass of water

on the left side of the couch
a tall floor lamp

and on the couch itself
a blue-gray wool blanket
draped across her lap

she sat on her couch
and looked out of the two large windows

the blinds blinked
open and closed
open and closed

and sometimes
they stayed closed for hours

the view varied a little bit
but the comfort she felt on her couch
remained the same

and so she stayed there

day after day after day
night after night after night

until the blinds stopped working
and the light
no longer filled the room

cobwebs stretched from lamp to table
trinkets now blanketed in dust
the book left open halfway
water long since evaporated from her glass

and the blue-gray wool blanket
draped across the couch
now nothing more than a moth’s haven

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Jennifer Fendya
Inspiration piece

Aurora
By Ray Sharp
Response

You trudge through the coldest hour
in that nightly red-brick canyon
where fears and worries are warehoused
behind arrays of blank-faced windows

until the sudden yellow dawn flares
hot sulfur and you blink back a tear
in the subitaneous blinding of the new day.
You are small and yellow, a mustard seed –

bitter, strong, and yes, simulacrum
of the sun.  You might grow into a tall tree
that shades all the herbs of the garden,
or light a fire that burns long into night.

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Jennifer Fendya
Response

The Old Gods
By Ray Sharp
Inspiration piece

The old gods speak
through the crow in the tree,
the tongue of the flame,
the wind that stirs the ashes,

but I do not understand
the song the vireo sings
in the mountain ash
above the raspberry patch.

In the evening stillness
the swallows make easy work
of souls on the wing.

In darkness, I see a face
with empty eyes
and teeth like little suns.

Oh to feel pain bloom
out of me like red roses,
like the blood of saints.

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All of Us
Missy Lambert
Acrylic paints and colored pencils
on birch wood panel
Inspiration piece

All of Us
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Response

Fused and linked and born and died
Blood and bones and sky and tide
Mountains tall and climbers high
Fish and fowl trees reaching nigh
Breathing growing intertwining
Life as one the universe
Part and parcel all connected
One huge whole of planet terse
Some aware of these connections
Others blind though truth does spark
Light and dark and color sprinkled
Day and night the song of Lark
Life eternal all around us
Skin and fur and bud and bloom
Joy of living all of matter
All together neath sun and moon
Glorious planet heaving flying
Celebrations ring throughout
Renewal constant promise ever
All life sparking north and south
All of us all blessed and sacred
All of us together chained
Each of us needing each other
Love the binding that honors, tames.

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Jonathan Ottke
Inspiration piece

Acorns’ Circumflexes
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

Nature’s diacritics often are expressed using fallen leaves, scattered seeds,
Detritus that was once proximate, sloughed bark. Heed these prominences!
Inter alia, life’s not meant for ratcheting up records. Rather, we’re tasked to
Protect planet, creatures, green allies, forge ahead kindly, humbly, graciously
Whether we’re windward or leeward of material accomplishments. Relying on
Interoception never disappoints. Nonexistence self-care endures as insalubrious.
In addition, it’s perspicuous that merely observing self-reflections in carryings-on
Causes short-sightedness. We ought to, instead, festoon like bees, rebuild the world.
Let’s not pass time inured to hate, spillage, spoilage, similarly, elects’ greenwashing.
Air, water, land entreat, by way of diminutive enunciations, that we engender amends.

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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.