The First Minutes
Something is different; something is not right. Gone is the wonderful warm floating and the world is collapsing in on itself – in on me. Upside down, I feel gravity’s first insistent pull. For the last few hours I have felt what should be called beforeshocks, each amplifying in intensity; constricting. The biggest yet grips, and with it this time I am squeezed downwards. I feel a presence at the heart of this, closing in on me, outreaching when the quaking occurs, but this quickly passes. And then there is light below me, bright white and red. I can feel it course through the crown of my...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of July 10 (Meditation)
While summer is often considered a time for exploration, it can also be a great time for reflection. This week’s contributors meditate on life, both literally and figuratively. A poem by Jada Yee, “Follow the Recipe,” captures the sort of meditation caused by everyday actions. In a short story by Laurence Levey, “Yidiot,” a man attends a meditation class and comes to some unexpected self-realizations. Lana Bella’s poem, “Facing East on Basho Pond,” evokes a well-known poet with an intensity of...
Read MoreFacing East on Basho Pond
Every day, I trod the imperial Basho Pond, feet placed neatly in footsteps by the latent water. Staccato tongue cuddled the acrolect of frogs and mist, pugnacious through ice-capped moss. Saffron robe cast up night’s cutlass blades like refuge drawing lava from crater floor, sparing my quiescence its silhouette against these rustic plains of forethought. At the chirps of robin’s nest, up the Tea House Hermitage, a life of incense strong-winged over bead- drops of dew, distilled into innards of cicada-hued wood beams, more arcane than any frankincense tracing veins of dead ghosts....
Read MoreYidiot
I decided to go on Thursday night to the Buddhist talk at my temple, the Congregation B’nai Tsimmes. I managed to get out of work early, always a Nirvana-inducing feat, then high-tailed it home, ran three, showered, nuked and ate a health-conscious chicken pot pie, and set forth on my Siddharthan quest. Minya stayed home with the quads. On the ten-minute ride to the temple, I fretted about whether I was wearing the right clothes; the flyer had said to wear “comfortable clothes and footwear,” but I wasn’t about to wear sweats to a place of worship. I wondered if I would know anybody...
Read MoreFollow the Recipe
In the kitchen I look over this clear glass bowl filled with ordinary white flour. I push play on my vintage iPod and then go back two decades, when I was an unknowing, bendable thing. I shape my hands into spoons, and as if entering a warm bath, they gently descend. Open palms press down to the bottom; they bloom into starfish. Sand as smooth as the ocean; softer than delicate coffee grounds. My knuckles are tucked in, already dreaming. Then, like being carried to the shore, my hands resurface, accompanied by little waterfalls, outlining a traveling timeline on my skin. Cascading...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of March 12 (Growing Up)
This week, Wild Violet’s contributors focus on that fuzzy, confusing time between childhood and adulthood. In her poem “Last Witness to My Childhood,” Jacqueline Jules reflect on life with a disabled sister. John Woodington’s story, “The Weightlifters,” goes back to high school to show how it’s possible to belong and be outsiders at the same time. Eve Kenneally’s poem, “Zayn Leaves One Direction, Teen Girl Twitter Universe Mourns,” captures the repetitive chaos of modern teenage...
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