phototropism
peat moss swells with water ready for new life
seeds are placed, labeled carefully
a lesson from the year of twelve yellow tomato plants
left to rest. no light needed
little sprouts begin to appear
a wisp of green surrounded by darkness
sprouts grow until they are ready for a new place
replanted into small pots and
lined up on the windowsill facing the afternoon sun
each plant craves light. bends to soak it in
with daily diligence I lovingly
turn each pot so the plants will stretch and strengthen
then each is moved outside to a peaceful gentle place to
increase capacity. to be who it is meant to be
finally in
full sun
each plant is ready to bring peace all its own
providing food and beauty
and so too the Master Gardener with daily diligence
turns me around to stretch and strengthen me
I bend toward the Light of the Son
Kate R. Johnson is a poet, gardener, baker, and associate professor of mathematics education, although not exactly in that order. She has depression. Writing poetry, she finds the feelings the depression steals and breathes life into them. She frees the sounds and images her illness constructs. She builds the resilience needed to survive. Mostly she writes for herself and, well, her therapist (he might believe he’s an editor). She hopes one day her words will allow someone else to know they are not alone.
***
This Morning’s Walk
Matthew 6:26
The swallow, fishing line strangling her wing,
hangs under the high bridge.
Struggling amongst rows of pipe, dark girders,
beams, and scalloped mud apartments,
she launches,
a flurriment of feathers,
faithfully toward morning,
only to reach the cruel thread’s end,
snap back, sway limply.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;
Alone, she holds herself, rests,
prepares the next attempt,
while others dart and skim,
partaking of sunlight reflected pink on water.
yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.
But you are not alone.
I see you, unreachable, striving and failing
in dust and shadow
to break unbreakable bonds,
Are ye not better than they?
and eventually, though I will walk away,
I will not leave you behind.
Haley Ashton is a mother and teacher living in Utah.
***
While Somehow Knowing
I think I’m Jesus or God, he says,
his serious brown eyes boring into mine.
My stomach spasms, as my mind sprints
on a spinning treadmill,
and I will my eyes not,
under any circumstances,
to leak.
On the couch opposite me, I don’t see
the forty-seven-year-old man,
but the twice-abandoned
four-year-old cuddled on my lap,
before car seats, on the drive home,
as I asked who he wanted to be—
which name he wanted
to use in the new adoption.
He continues. You know that war at the end
of the world? I’ve already fought it
and won. but they
won’t leave me alone.
The spirits and souls that go in and out
of my body. I see them, but can’t stop them,
and they make me so tired.
My root-deep hope drinks hemlock
and wilts, remembering how at fifteen,
he saw inanimate things move and speak—
the brambles already forming in his brain.
I know what he will ask,
and it’s an avalanche crushing
the breath from my chest.
His Do you believe me?,
echoes his long ago,
I’m okay, right?
I’m like everybody else,
while somehow knowing
he isn’t.
Lorraine Jeffery delights in spending time with her husband and children after spending many years managing public libraries. She is the mother of ten children (eight adopted) and now lives where she can see the beautiful Utah mountains from her front window. She has won poetry prizes in state and national contests and published over one hundred poems in various journals and anthologies, including Clockhouse, Kindred, Calliope, Canary, Ibbetson Street, Rockhurst Review, Naugatuck River Review, Orchard Press, Two Hawks, Halcyon, Healing Muse, Regal Publishing and Bacopa Press. 