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Moving Words Series XVIII

UNDER THE STREETLIGHT

Last moth of autumn,
feathery and golden as the now-turned oak,
with wings that brush the wind
as gently as a closing lash
against a cheek,
whose pheromone do you seek
on this damp and lonely night?
We both turn ragged
beneath this false moon
without promise of increase.

Michael Davis

LI RIVER

Two slight men lean
over their poles moving the boat
along. Only a single basket
on this floating dream.
Something raw and mean when
the basket has no fish.

Patricia Garfinkel

MOVEMENT

Move, the retreat director said, beyond
words, images, concepts, and emotions,
and experience God in contemplation.
So I closed my eyes and moved beyond
the image of man and toward the woman
in the white cotton summer dress with little
purple tulips on it sitting across from me
in the meditation hall. The bell rang,
the retreat director asked us what happened,
and the woman said she felt a presence.

Douglas J. Wilkenson

About the Series XIV Poets:

Michael C. Davis’s work has been published in the journals Poet Lore, Lip Service, and Minimus. His work has also appeared in the anthologies Open Door and Winners. He is the author of a chapbook, Upon Waking, published by Mica Press in 1999. He has been active as a reader in the DC area as well as visiting writer in grade schools in Arlington, VA, Washington, DC, and Brattleboro, VT. In 2001, the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., where he works as a copy editor, granted him a six-month paid sabbatical to teach poetry workshops to second and fifth graders in the Arlington Public Schools.

Patricia Garfinkel is a senior policy analyst and speechwriter at the National Science Foundation here in Arlington. Before that she spent 19 years as speechwriter for the Chairman of the Committee on Science in the House of Representatives. She has published three books of poetry: Ram's Horn, From the Red Eye of Jupiter, and the latest in 2000, titled Making the Skeleton Dance, published by George Braziller.

Douglas J. Wilkinson was born and raised in Los Angeles where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Theology from Loyola Marymount University. He moved to Washington, DC in 1986 and completed the course work for a Master of Arts degree in Spirituality at the Catholic University of America, and the course work for a Master of Arts degree in Hinduism at American University. For ten years he taught philosophy at the College of Southern Maryland and now works at the Arlington County Public Library. His poems have appeared in Heliotrope, Avatar, and Connections.

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