Collected art and poetry from December 2021

Raise Her

Raise her in love
In strength and compassion
Raise her to love
With reckless abandon

Raise her to know
Her beauty and worth
Raise her to know
Her place on this earth

Raise her to lead,
Go before those who suffer
Raise her to lead
With passion and fervor.

Raise her to go forth
Boldly on new ground
Raise her to go forth
With pride and renown

Raise her to leave
Her mark in this world
Raise her to raise
A powerful girl.

-By j.m.

Eclipse

Twilight will greet your delicious lotus eyes,
before thine...
& you will see I placed & hung the moon there
for you love...
Amongst a valley of stars
I await nightfall to harness its magik, its power
& I bathe naked
& the worship within its/her....lunar reflections
Of love, of beauty, of you......
Now her warm lush saturations
Quell the pathos of my flesh
& the trepidation of my squared heart
& I ananthemas, a paradigm of tears being born again in constellations
Too dead too care.
O! illuminations of your other worldly glow?
I beg of thee...heal these archaic wounds
& the tragedy of their silence

-By Richard J Balog

Kissed by a Deer

lay me down in the rain speckled grass
arms spread wide
legs spread wider
eyes following the pines to the overcast sky

every pore
tingling

every cell
spasming

the smell of moth-eaten particles and pollen
spritzing through my nostrils
my lungs permeating with grizzled smoke
filling my veins with spores, semen, and sap

every dew drip
low bird call
snap of a twig
a symphony, a lullaby

microorganisms, minerals, soil, roots
reach up to pull me under
we fertilize one another
wolfish secret lovers
She and I

a deer wanders by
and eats grass out of my mouth
kissing me thoroughly as she does
I kiss her back with a sloppy french kiss
transmitting communion
between core and sky

-By Amanda Kay Williams. Accountant by day, poet by night; amandakaywrites

Main image: Holiday Gift Guide by Adam Whittier.