Sleeping Under Snow by Susan Austin
“Sleeping Under Snow” by Susan Austin The gate is open so do what you may. All I ask: leave what remains wild wild. Be kind to the thistle. Of all the lotus flowers raining upon the Buddha that day, all the bodhisattvas– there must have been a weed or two. I feel 10,000 years old. I give back all your wars. As for mine, it was futile trying to out-swim a tsunami. Virginia, I put riverstones in my coat...
Patience by Mary Elise Bailey
“Patience” by Mary Elise Bailey from “Songs for Spring” I curl around the bulb of a strange blue flower, its nascent lines, in darker blues, delphic and hidden, like a cross between a wish and a map no one can read. I wait for the leftover snow to melt, last year’s grass, still tinted green. I wait for the lines to reveal their intentions, to thicken, to ripen, as the ground slowly unfolds its...
Doors by Dawn Banghart
“Doors” by Dawn Banghart Each morning can start different or like this. Each morning can be an open door. Forget the coffee, forget the shower if you could forget responsibilities right now where would you go after tugging open the door? Nothing is needed, not even your shoes leave them, laces untied, lights off. Outdoors you will find a predawn sky a faint brightness in the east with one airplane coming or...
Women’s Work by Jude Rittenhouse
“Women’s Work” by Jude Rittenhouse I am ironing. Mother said that, when I was a baby, I watched her iron. Hour after hour. In the 1950’s, women pressed dresses, napkins, stacks of men’s white shirts, even sheets. My eyes followed her hands, back and forth, endlessly smoothing life’s wrinkles and creases. All of my adult life, I have hated ironing. Now, I am ironing. Another woman friend has learned: cancer....
Psalm of Fire and Water by Cristina Baptista
“Psalm of Fire and Water” by Cristina Baptista “[Christ’s] mother gave birth to him without ever having loved. She wasn’t a woman: she was a suitcase.”...
Call by Alla Bozarth
“Call” by Alla Bozarth Inspired by “Mountain Moving Day,” 1911, by the Japanese Feminist Poet, Yosano Akiko. There is a new sound of roaring voices in the deep and light-shattered rushes in the heavens. The mountains are coming alive, the fire-kindled mountains, moving again to reshape the earth. It is we sleeping women, waking up in a darkened world, cutting the chains from off our...
Stone Love by Joanna Clapps Herman
“Stone Love” by Joanna Clapps Herman I search the river bed Feeling for stones Use only my toes Curl my distal digits around Pick them up with these unhands Carry them with me A punishment For grief that, Unworded cannot find tears. This grief knows nothing Recognizes nothing Claims nothing Is mute I long for tears, but I am uncreatured A dull stone. ____________________ Share your response to this...
Next to You, Permanence by Elizabeth Jacobson
“Next to You, Permanence” by Elizabeth Jacobson I wrapped the corpse of a juvenile bull snake I found on the road around a slender branch of a young aspen tree, coiling it into three even loops. The fluid from the snake’s body collected in its head, which swelled to many times its normal size. The next day, flies covered the body so thickly I could not tell a snake was what they clung to. On the third day,...
Horseshoe Crab Fandango by Nancy Krim
“Horseshoe Crab Fandango” by Nancy Krim Head to tail to back to belly, you begin… spin salt sand into shell. No one tells you, you just know skin hardens into what protects. Remember to lie low beneath the tidal surge, keep still, up to your slits in sand. But always and inside in spite of you and your glossy shell, the body grows beyond its own protection. Moon shifts, bulges on her axis. You awaken, short...
Summer at Twenty-One by Eva M. Schlesinger
“Summer at Twenty-One” by Eva M. Schlesinger I loved the air before dusk Still warm, no longer hot I lay in the front porch hammock, the crickets singing with glee kids playing ball on our dead end Merry Street I lay watching the sky change from light blue to stardust to purple writing in a little notebook my grandmother gave me I wrote about the moment I was in I had sunk my teeth in like a delicious apple...
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August 8-9 | immersion | noon to noon EST
WAVES ALIVE is an immersive experience, held tenderly by the ebb and flow of ritual, sisterhood, creative expansion, then surfacing to share what we have uncovered about ourselves and our art. Creative sisters are invited to join us at any point and remain for any length of time during our full-circle offering.
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The Deepest Place Jul 26, 2025
