~ 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
Saffron
Which tie? you ask, and I point
to the fade of blue-into-dusk.
Which skirt? I wonder, and you bless
the comfort of my old thrift shop floral.
Black shoes. Brown shoes. Your grandmother’s
Bible. All the words you will speak neatly written.
Outside the trees are putting on saffron.
Little brother slips into his new suit of light.
*
Robin Turner has recent work in Bracken Magazine, Ethel, River Mouth Review, and in the Dream Geographies project. A longtime community teaching artist in Dallas, she is now living in the Pineywoods of rural East Texas for a spell. She works with teen writers online.
The Unfolding
I am not one to rush headlong
into ceremony as I do into love.
When I find the small swan
years later, folded from paper
of pale blue, I pause. Study
each careful crease your fingers
once made. Remember. This
tender gesture, the miracle
of geometry. How a square can be shape-
shifted, become something other,
something sudden & bent, almost
beautiful. How it sat there, quiet & flightless
in the palm of my hand. The lake
our only witness, the air thick
with questions, each knowing cloud. I am ready
now. Anoint myself priestess & begin. I unfold
what was folded, silent & slow. Undo & loosen
the brief bird that had been, soothe & smooth
with my fingertips four corners of sky.
*
Robin Turner has recent work in One (Jacar Press), Heron Tree, West Trestle Review, Literary Mama, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and a chapbook, bindweed & crow poison, with Porkbelly Press. A longtime community teaching artist in Dallas, she recently moved to the Pineywoods of East Texas. She works with teen writers online.
