Katie Spring

Live Through This

We are going
to live through
this, love

listen, even now
your heart is
beating

let each pulse
be a revolution
let each pump of
your heart's blood
be hot as the sun

do not hide
what brings you
alive

to live through this
we must love
in riotous rage 

Katie Spring

A Few Questions For You

Did you know
the moment you
ask a question
change begins

the seeds of every
possible future
live in our
wondering

the only way
to ensure nothing
changes is to
give up asking

despite that old story
about cats,
your curiosity is
what brings you alive

So I have a few
questions for you —

What do you love?
Who are you singing with?
How are you tending
to your own heart
which is, too
a seed of
wonder 

Katie Spring

What Binds Us

Don't let this brokenness
fool you
we all deserve love
yes, even you

see the pieces
splayed out
how light glints
on the edges

how light binds
us back together
a mosaic
where the reconnection
is the beauty 

R.D. Eno

WATER MUSIC
in memory of Naomi Flanders (1953-2025)

Little by little   she flaked away   until
nothing remained of her but the obdurate
grain at the core   that   sadly   contra credo
would lastly and utterly dissolve in death

as the river   relentlessly churning   consumes
its bedrock   as well the wrack and pebbles strewn
like pearls when the twine snaps   never
to reassemble themselves around her throat

What then becomes   I wonder   of the encrypted
lattice of crystals   what becomes of the psalm
when the music dissipates in the whispering vaults   what
becomes of the poem when no one remembers the words?

Snow sifts like stardust from the indecipherable
clouds   that shape and unshape the sky in mutable
litanies   shedding their syllables at our feet   each a grain
of dust that was once a pebble   that was once a mountain

R.D. Eno

TELLING THE DIFFERENCE

What is the difference between untethered and unmoored?
In bristly burdock   the crickets of September gossip in a way
that irritates me   Don’t they know the end is very near?
Did I ever want freedom or only to be left alone?

At this time   of which I can hardly speak   a great fatigue
sets in as feverish summer jiggles itself to bits   and the signs
of the great coming-apart proliferate all over the place   You
hear dogs bark where there never were dogs before

also crows   (but the sky’s empty)   prayers of love and admiration from
check-out tabloids   Delusions?   How did it come to this?   What
must the crickets   not to mention the ticks and mosquitoes
and the cluster flies   think of us?   At a convenience store in Pennsylvania

a young man comes out of the restroom without having
flushed   What does it matter? you say   in the vast scheme
of things?   Wait   There’s a scheme?   Does the open road beckon
when there’s nowhere to go?   Have you met the undesignated driver

of alternate interpretations?   Aren’t we all   that is   the stars
the insects   the young   the comets   me   legally compelled
toward a grand convergence?   You’ve got your answer right there
I mean   the difference between untethered and unmoored