Tag Archives: Soul-Lit

Every Day Has Something in It by Nancy K. Jentsch

1 Reply 
Every Day Has Something in It 
(Title from “Everything That Was Broken” by Mary Oliver) 
 
not just the first glow of hope in the east 
 golden sky becoming a canvas of stone-washed blue 
not just birds who busy the sky 
 mindful only of the task at hand 
 
not just the sheep, the turtle, the tulip in azure sky 
 sun pausing as noon’s keystone 
not just meadows garlanded with daisy and vetch 
 fitted with thistle and cricket 
 
not just the creek bank seeded with mink and crawdads 
 and hill’s dead ash tree the flicker covets 
not just fresh-laid eggs that warm chilled hands 
 the scent of sweet clover spilling into lungs 
 
not just the sun descending through frescoed clouds 
 toward dusk’s invitation to lightning bugs 
not just platoons of bats heralding night 
 while Venus wakes under indigo sheets 

Nancy K. Jentsch’s poetry appears in Eclectica, EcoTheo Review, Soul-Lit and numerous anthologies. In 2020, she received an Arts Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her chapbook, Authorized Visitors, was published in 2017 and her writer’s page on Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/NancyJentschPoet/ 

the shaman sees the Dread Unless by Wayne-Daniel Berard

Leave a reply 
 didn't need them this time
 White Bear Eagle Sea Turtle
 Ivory Dove
 just directly to the motel room
 himself  sitting at the foot of the bed
 finished and finished and
 entirely seized
 (Merlin and Morgana)
 and you standing to the right
 behind him in
 your black bra and slip
 never looking so lost
 possessed
 by all that losing
    he snapped to
    like a slap
    a mystic
    rear end collision
 lost your number
 and has passed
 you by every day since
 his dearest friend
 quizzical hurt saved

---

Wayne-Daniel Berard, an adoptee who found and embraced his 
Jewishness, teaches English and Humanities at Nichols College, 
Dudley, MA. He is an interfaith clergy person, and co-founding 
editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry. He 
lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.