Amethyst Review

Jerusalem

It feels strange going south; 
dust and divots 
   punctuate the road
   like a pocky moon.

Where are we? 
I drive on.

If we abandon our dreams like meccas
   and all you call manna – illusion…

Then which way is Jerusalem?
Maybe nowhere but somewhere east of here;
   I am not sure.

I follow the road to Pipiriki, 
hoping it will flatten, 
admiring the dark green hollow
   that hides a river:
the Whanganui lies exposed.

Once it carried men, wills set on wandering; 
   men of few words.

Jerusalem -- follow the river.
Here lived a man of several words
   poet, rascal, friend of priests.

I remember being shown pages bible-thin 
   words spent in a night of readings and laughter.
   gone now, remote and hidden 
      like a landing in the overgrown bush.
 
Tamed, the poet’s words rise as prayer:   
   ‘Heaven is with us when you are with us…’
I will go no further today
   but pause to retrieve a stone, gray
      to prop by the cottage door.

My son wants to go to the Four Square, 
   not Jerusalem after all.
So we turn before the water rises 
   and slip upstream, 
   gathering supplies for a voyage to come.           

Nell Starr is a poet and priest in New Zealand, trained at Iowa (MA) and Duke (MDiv). She writes poems and prayers, and while in Iowa City, helped Windhover Press print poetry by hand, a letter and word at a time.

Let 
	after “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon 
 
Let the morning sky be a prayer,  	
clouds dappled peach and purple. 
 
Let memories of a loving marriage  	
be a prayer for our children. 
 
Let strong faith and hope for the future  	
be praise, a forever prayer. 
 
To the poem that sings, the world that turns,  	
let there be prayer. 
 
Let the blooms of dogwood and redbud  	
be a prayer of promise. 
 

Patricia A. Joslin is a poet living in Charlotte, North Carolina. She writes about music, memory, and the magic of life in later years. Her first collection, I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow was published in 2023 as “literary therapy” following the death of her husband. A second collection, No Packing Necessary, Poems for the Solo Journey is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. Poems have appeared in a variety of publications. Patricia travels widely, often alone, seeking immersive experiences that inspire her poetry. She believes that every stage of life holds its own magic. Online: patriciajoslin.com

Basilico S.Domenico

Landlocked by a Sienese fresco, you pray,
insipidly fleshed, matched by wings

in dusty pinks.

Bent-kneed, you mirror your twin,

high arched in an organised cosmos,
backgrounded tight as a Liberty print.

Each of you sports a dinner-plate halo,

fixed to a circlet of something
slightly perjink.

Attendant on celestial duty,
guard for the Madonna and child,

crowned, fairy-lit.

But do your knees really suggest genuflection?
I’m uncertain, as your feet disappear
in a shoal. So, is it

that even angels need breaks?
Transported by medieval jet-skis – 

get you – painted, ready to dive.

Beth McDonough is a Dundee-based poet and artist. Initially she trained in Jewellery and Silversmithing at Glasgow School of Art, later completing an M.Litt at Dundee University. She has been Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts and Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland). Her pamphlet Lamping for Pickled Fish is published by 4Word. Her shared poetry collection with Nikki Robson, and a hybrid project on outdoor swimming will be published in 2026. She co-hosts Platform Sessions in Fife.

Conductor


Sometimes I sit beside my golden son
as he bathes, god of the sudsy sea,
admiral of the milk jug boats.
He seems to feel the most operative here–
maybe even the most effusive–
but he will never allow me to play 
with his moldering bath toys or 
splash him with supportive water,
no matter how many fevered giggles
he ejects my way, how many of his
raving smiles I snare. Still, we perch together 
for a fishline of epitomized magnitude,
operating untogether but never far apart.

The backyard pool comes alive in May,
where I stand my son up on my feet
and take him for a Cajun waltz
along the strongbox shallows.
He will spend many buoyant hours
crawling up and down the vinyl steps,
chasing a life raft around the redwood deck.
With a euphoric “Jump! Jump!”,
I leap into intrinsic action, bouncing him
up and down in the whisking water
as he shrieks up a storm of spirea.

Our peak adventures are on the coquina beach,
where the emerald ocean exhales flustered surf.
The scalding driftwood sand burns our hungry heels,
so I take his curt hand and we run for the brink of shore.
He races down the unfolding joyful sand,
mosaic sealight flickering with sunup against 
my wide-brimmed black oak tortoise shades,
shielding stabs of scurvy grief from God’s audit.
 

Megan Denese Mealor echoes and erases in her native land of Jacksonville, Florida. Nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and a 2023 Best of the Net candidate, her writing has been featured in hundreds of literary journals worldwide. Megan has authored five poetry collections: Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press); Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds); A Mourning Dove’s Wishbone (Cyberwit.net, 2022); A Cat May Look Like a King (Dancing Girl Press, Summer 2026); and Coals to Newcastle (Cyberwit.net, 2027).

The Dove and the Crow

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the song without the words
And never stops at all.

                 Emily Dickinson​

Yes, Emily, you are right.
Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
life’s sweet Dove.
But right beside it,
too near, perches Despair,
life’s ravenous Crow.
the thing with blue-black feathers
the color of a day-old bruise.
The Crow caws at the Dove,
stares it down with blood-red eyes.
The Dove cowers,
hiding its face under a pure white wing.

But curled into this ball
the color of virgin snow,
the Dove’s heart
begins to swell with song.
Its wings break free,
spread wide,
and loosen upon the world
the holy melody of Faith.
The Crow backs away,
taking its minor place.
The Dove takes flight,
soaring high and high and high.

Cynthia Pitman, author of poetry collections The White Room, Blood Orange, Breathe, and Broken, has been published in Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Yard, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem finalist), Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art (Pushcart Prize nominee), and other journals, and in anthologies Pain and Renewal, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, Nothing Divine Dies, and What is All This Sweet Work?

Gracia

I’ve been thinking lately
about the word grace

how it sounds in Spanish
gracia     how it starts

with the catch of a brief breath 
against the roof of your mouth

then a half-rolled r flutters
on the butterfly of your tongue

I love the way its first syllable
grows in your opening mouth

only to find itself 
ebbing in a sibilant whisper

and the way its ending
not quite two syllables

dances away in the air
leaving your mouth unfastened

unfettered     open
in wonder

gracia

all the sounds of the world
are in that word      spoken

time and again      in thanks,
in beauty     in prayer

Often addressing the malignant legacies of racism, misogyny, and religious trauma, Bett Butler’s poetry and short fiction have appeared in small-press publications in the U.S., U.K., E.U., and Canada. An award-winning songwriter and jazz musician (International Songwriting Competition, Artist Foundation, Independent Music Awards), she co-owns Mandala Music Production, where she and her spouse produce music and spoken word licensed for HBO, Discovery Channel, and more. Her upcoming album, “The Gospel Truth,” is a musical response to the rise of Christian nationalism. More of her work can be found at www.mandalamusic.com.

Island in the River  

I, like you, am a landscape 
of return   of languages-- 
a river’s home. 

This place of repair 
of lighthouses   of stone,
old growth forest just 

small enough to enclose me.
I like, you, am totemic
geodesic    ecosystem.

Place of convergence,
birch and sunflower.
You send me searching 

for lost languages.

Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and advisor on sustainability. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of Tell Me, published by Lily Poetry Review Books. Her poems have been published in ten countries in such magazines and journals as The Bombay Literary Review, Pangyrus, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, and Revista Cardenal. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including The Nature of our Times and Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems. She is the Founder of the Lexicon of Change, a web-based platform devoted to the words we need for ecological and social transformation.

Ashes of a Promise

Fire consumes the trees, taking the familiar—
 canopy, shelter,
 the sound of birds,
 the scurry of small lives
 in the brush.

What once held life falls silent.
 It leaves a black scar,
 nothing but ash
 where memory once stood.

But beneath the ash,
 the ground is not finished.
 Heat cracks open what was sealed.
 Light reaches soil that has never known it.
 Seeds long buried begin to wake.

The forest does not return as it was.
 It grows back changed—
 new trees,
 new life,
 claiming the space as home.

What the fire consumed
 was not the promise,
 only the familiar.

And even now,
 the earth remembers what was placed there—
 before fire,
 before loss.

Trisha Whipple is a 7th-grade Science Teacher who uses poetry to understand the world. Her poems explore ideas of faith and reflect on how those truths appear in everyday life.

First words   
       In the beginning was the Word

In the first light	
the faint clicking voices of the first
viruses spoke to the newcomer bacteria. 
God heard and understood 
and said, “This is good.”
Speaking in their popping language,
the Creator asked them what they were doing.
“We’re eating rock,” they replied.
God said, “I see. You are also creating
fertile soil,” and said, “This is very good.”
God called the chatter “Words.”

Over time, God heard words become music
from the mouths of birds,
warnings and celebration roared 
from the mouths of predatory animals,
and talk of problems, discoveries
and of the mysteries of creation
from the mouths of humans.
God says, “this is good.”

Elizabeth A. Hykes is a poet of the Missouri Ozarks who enjoys people, nature, music and reading poetry.

Pie Pellicane
for VM

Then shall the fall further the flight in me. -Herbert

i.
Light with extended wings
unhinged from sluggish dawn
came veering on
feathering waves,

sheering the way a seabird shaves
the wind,
dipping in obverse gleams.
Of each long crumbling dark

the hurtling arc
is like a pelican
skating its own unfazed

reflection,
grazing its mirrored
turns.

Water and light and seabirds
do with ease
what soul learns

hard.


ii.
The ocean baffles thirst
while lines the waves rehearse

stymie my ear
with more than I know how to hear:

light footsteps on the waves,
“It is I” in their octaves.

And how can mortal eyes take in
Christ passing in the pelican?

Watch how reflections totter
where Logos walks on water.

More than I can read’s twice written –
pelican on pelican.


iii.
On my incohesion, 
on my toss, 
on my submergence, 

walk across. 
I am the image faltering. 
Draw me so I'm drawn 

while I erase. 
So that my altering 

poises
in convergence, 

pace 
to pace.

Isabel Chenot has loved, memorised, and practised poetry all her remembered life. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood Books.