Tag: Bracha K. Sharp

Two Poems by Bracha K. Sharp

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I AM REMINDED

I don’t always remember
how many prayers
are being said
by this world,

but it is enough
to lift up the window-latch
and watch, enough
to be with these dark vines

vibrating with wind,
to watch the clever squirrel
and the darkening sky—

and I am an observer
with eyes never
wide enough to see what
cannot be seen—

but I am reminded,
that somehow,
this world is always
praying.

*

TREASURE

I cannot tell you
how beautiful it is
to look at the world
aqueous, upside down,

how glancing
at puddles reveals
another world—

trees swimming
on the wet deck,
reflections from a sky
dripping with mystery,

this view that deserves
only hushed silence
and the full, unmeditated
understanding of closed eyes
that see so much now—

and will never come again.

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Rogue Agent, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com

A Selection of Poems by Bracha K. Sharp

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§

Recalling the pond
turtles on a wooden plank
heron ascending

§

Muggy summer heat
the cats curling and stretching
their pink tongues lolling

§

Expanse of flowers
around a hollow tree trunk
a whole world inside

§

Small fly on my arm
coming in for a landing—
how big is your world!

§

Clinging and searching
In this everyday yearning—
Still, Your Faith in me

§

Silently watching
My mother make food for others;
This quiet Mitzvah

§

CONFLAGRATION

It’s like the tree was on fire,
a conflagration,

bursts of orange
and red shooting up above our
Japanese Maple, still green,

still waiting to change.

In the silence—

red leaves,
flowing,
the gasp of air,
the pause I needed to take.

There is nothing comparable to
a vision, so fleeting,
seen with eyes that
words try to express,
my own always trying to catch up to that moment,

over and over again.

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry (where she was a nominee for ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature [formerly The Orison Anthology]), Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Rogue Agent, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com

Tapestry by Bracha K. Sharp

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TAPESTRY

When I say “hidden,”
I mean the way that the body
Hides, until ready to break free,
The way that I hold these petals against
My face, kept anchored, only
By their scent.

When I say “held,” I mean
That even the contours of the
Canopy above me hold my
Brain and cradle my spine,
That too quickly to bloom and

The stem will break, that too
Little soil and I am afraid of what
Will not expose itself, will be kept
dormant and closed.

I have forgotten,
Misplaced the key to the door
Behind me, I have held the jar of
Blooms close to my face to protect
What I don’t yet know will emerge,
I am ready, here, to extend to

Your reach.

But when I say “brain” and “holding”
I speak of the flowers in
My skirts,
embroidered in stasis,
And the columns that surround us;
because geometricity has taken my hand and held me
There.

And when I say “emerge” I speak
Of the unlocking and I invite the
Brain to undo, unkink, the way that
Even the seeds revivify, the way
That my skirts now reach out
To you to punch through columnar constructs, the

Way that my face emerges
From moon-shadow and glances
At flowered columns, wrapping vines—

The way that my eyes see yours and my brain blooms into green,
As it opens, magnified, the way that
The body
Breaks free, and unites with the
Brain, the steps that are taken

To open the stone door.

*Note: An ekphrastic poem after Ms. Danelle Rivas’s painting, “El Camino De Esmeralda”

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in American Poetry Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry (where she was a nominee for ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature [formerly The Orison Anthology]), and Wild Roof Journal, among others. Her poetry is forthcoming in The Closed Eye Open, Rogue Agent Journal, and Thimble Literary Magazine. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com

haiku by Bracha K. Sharp

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Concentrated flight,
Carrying the bowl of wind—
These birds in chill cold.

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry (where she was a nominee for ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature [formerly The Orison Anthology]), and Wild Roof Journal, among others. Her poetry is forthcoming in The Closed Eye Open, the Rogue Agent Journal, and the Thimble Literary Magazine. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com

ONE ART’s nominations for Best Spiritual Literature

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~ ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature (formerly The Orison Anthology) ~ 

Amit Majmudar – Constancy
Bracha K. Sharp – After The Questions
Jennifer Abod – At the Indian Ocean
Pauli Dutton – While Teaching Line Dancing at a Senior Center, Someone Accuses Me of Always Being Happy
Donna Spruijt-Metz – Day 0: Shekhinah
Robin Turner – The Unfolding

After The Questions by Bracha K. Sharp

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AFTER THE QUESTIONS

Always, I was after the questions,
Or maybe more the answers—
The what would happens,
The what-if’s—
And the lack, too, the
Void that would not fill;
Even the birds knew when to rest.

And the yearning tangled me—a web
of thunder,
a thing that pulled. And
even the leaves knew when to go;
Yet turn away, one second, and the breath of the world
Changes—

shadows shimmering, then gone,
and also, how the sun painted the ground in stripes,
and rose over me, unchecked.

Then I stepped outside and
The world was open,
and soft;
And so much that cannot be said.

And I,
hollowed out.

And then—
the song.

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in or has poetry forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, and Sky Island Journal, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal. She was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards and received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: http://www.brachaksharp.com/