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–Palestinian poet and editor of Mizna, George Abraham.

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I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340), Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing - then -

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THE PRESENCE IN ABSENCE

Poetry is not made of words.

I can say it’s January when 

it’s August. I can say, “The scent 

of wisteria on the second floor 

of my grandmother’s house

with the door open onto the porch

in Petaluma,” while I’m living

an hour’s drive from the Mexican 

border town of Ojinaga.

It is possible to be with someone

who is gone. Like the silence which 

continues here in the desert while

the night train passes through Marfa

louder and louder, like the dogs whining

and barking after the train is gone.

LINDA GREGG

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Whole and Without Blessing

Linda Gregg

What is beautiful alters, has undertow. Otherwise I have no tactics to begin. Femininity is a sickness. I open my eyes out of this fever and see the meaning of my life clearly. A thing like a hill. I proclaim myself whole and without blessing, or need to be blessed. A fish of my own spirit. I belong to no one. I do not move. Am not required to move. I lie naked on a sheet and the indifferent sun warms me. I was bred for slaughter like the other animals. To suffer exactly at the center, where there are no clues except pleasure.

(Source)

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(via Samantha Thornhill: “38. Shedding the Old”)

Such as the lobster cracking loose from its exoskeleton after moons of moulting,   or the viper that squeezes out of the skin of its remembrance, this oracle invites you to rewild yourself, to unbox, detox, and de- clutter your blood. Break free from the mold you made for yourself, for the animal in you that craves routines like sugar, addicted to the stress of your comforts. Sling your arm around the waist of your discomfort like it’s a new lover in these uncharted seas and distances untraversed. Take and give glee. Summon surprise. Something whim- sical this way comes. It smells something like wishes wrapped in wind as you trod the winding path through the forests of your interior. Be warned. You will bewilder beloveds. Hush. Some events are better experienced than explained. Take soul. Your joy is your job; and yours alone. Hire your self every day. Climb into your traveling shoes knowing that there, too, will be dancing.

Copyright © 2025 by Samantha Thornhill. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Swimming, One Day in August by Mary Oliver

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Thank you Sarom.

[Text ID:

Nocturne II

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here with a gust of rain rustling before it how can it be so late all at once somewhere the Perseids are falling toward us already at a speed that would burn us alive if we could believe it but in the stillness after the rain ends nothing is to be heard but the drops falling one at a time from the tips of the leaves into the night and I lie in the dark listening to what I remember while the night flies on with us into itself]

From The Shadow of Sirius, by W.S. Merwin

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Natalie Diaz "Where are our US poets who are still waiting to speak toward Palestine? And who are they still calling it poetry if it doesn't have the courage to speak out to stop a genocide? And who still valorizes “environmental” or “love” when the poems or their poets cannot speak out against the destruction of an entire land and water and people? Who then is poetry for when it has more craft in silence than in imagination of Palestinian life? Who then does poetry feed when its poets are afraid to speak out against the starvation of children? Who writes poetry today that is not also for the poets of Palestine?"

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To the other Palestinian mother Part I and Part II by Jenan Matari

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“… Or maybe the purpose of being here, wherever we are, is to increase the durability and the occasions of love among and between peoples. Love, as the concentration of tender caring and tender excitement, or love as the reasons for joy. I believe that love is the single, true prosperity of any moment and that whatever and whoever impedes, diminishes, ridicules, opposes the development of loving spirit is “wrong”/hateful”

��� June Jordan

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Andrea Gibson (@andreagibson)

[Text ID: One of our deepest human desires is to be known, and I've learned that to know people, truly, we have to be willing to unknow them. We have to quit seeing people through the lens of who we have decided they are, and start experiencing them in the moment instead. In any relationship when I find myself taking someone for granted, this is one of the surest portals to love. When we're ready to be surprised by someone, we're surprised all of the time. Each day they become a new planet to explore and be awed by. And here's the extra magic of that- people are far more likely to grow and flourish in the atmosphere of our aw. When we greet the one we love with curiosity and a readiness to be amazed, they commonly become more amazing by the day.]

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Perfect metaphor. Poem by Andrea Gibson

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"I'm one eyelash in the eye of humanity, holding on for dear dear life trying to get the eyelashes beside me to look in the right direction before we are all wiped off the face of this planet that desperately wants us to live of natural causes like kindness, like caring, like knowing these bodies are clothes we're all growing out of so quickly..."

Thank you.

NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2023 - Andrea Gibson - MAGA HAT IN THE CHEMO ROOM

“I wrote this piece at the end of treatment last year. Though there's a lot of humor in the poem, it speaks to the many emotions that surfaced while watching people with wildly different politics than my own navigate illness and mortality in the chairs right beside me. Thank you for watching, everyone. *All identifying details in the poem have been altered to respect the privacy of fellow patients.

Love, Andrea”

RIP Andrea Gibson

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My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.  Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

love letter from the afterlife, andrea gibson

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"that we are truly not alone in this, that our veins are absolutely strings tied to other people’s kites, that our lives are that connected."

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Andrea Gibson

support me on Ko-fi

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[Image ID:

GOOD GRIEF

Let your

heart break

so your spirit

doesn't.]

RIP Andrea Gibson 8/13/75-7/14/25

May your light continue to shine on in those who loved you.