A Morning in May by Shanon Grau There’s a restless heart underneath spring soil, with its May mornings that want to give you warmth but barely know the sun yet, and its gliding barn swallows who think they are bats in the light of day. There’s a sudden epiphany- and a sort of sun-kissed confusion from a seed that has only known the dark, but gives rise to the purple splendor of an iris, while the barn swallow flies by and finally realizes it’s a bird, and takes in the sun on a slowly warming morning in May. Sharon Grau: I am a Licensed Massage Therapist who lives near the sea in Asbury Park, NJ. I grew up in the midland/central NJ area but in 2015, I made the choice to move closer to the Atlantic Ocean. Ever since I was a little girl I have been enchanted by the natural world; at the age of 12, I began trying to describe this enchantment through the world of words and art. My love for art and poetry continued into my college years where I took classes
I Wish I Had Wings by Janavi Held (1965-2018) I wish I had wings! I'd leave this prison of gravity behind and go up, and up, grazing the tops of dazzling green trees, swaying in the wind. I'd soar through the mists of bright clouds breathing in freedom, and moist particles of fog and rain. I'd turn my face to the sun: warm. . . warming my insides, breaking the prison of flesh and bone wide open. I'd bathe in sweet moon rays and drink the dust of stars filling my heart with ancient light. I'd look down at the swarming Earth, but I'd never look back. ~This poem appears in the author's posthumous poetry collection, Whispers From Her Deathbed (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2022), which you can pre-order by clicking here. .~ Janavi Held (1965-2018) was a soulful dancer, artist, poet, photographer and yogini that was suddenly struck with an incurable illness in her forties, and spent the last five years of her life bedridden, wri