Moonrise Press is pleased to announce its nominations to the Pushcart Prize 2022. We submitted six nominations to Pushcart Prizes 2022 mostly from the Crystal Fire anthology. The anthology editor stated: "Since all poems in the book are excellent, my focus was the jury: what poems do the Pushcart Prize committee NEED to read for their own spiritual benefit?"
Therefore, five poems were selected from Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom. In addition, one poem was selected from Maja Trochimczyk's Bright Skies. Selected Poems.
The poems nominated for Pushcart Prizes 2022 are as follows:
1. From Crystal Fire: “Migration” by Bory Thach
2. From Crystal Fire: “A Room Full of Boxes” by Marlene Hitt
3. From Crystal Fire: “If I Rise” by Alice Pero
4. From Crystal Fire: “At Times, I Find Myself in Time” by Jeff Graham
5. From Crystal Fire: “Joy in a Careless Breeze” by Ambika Talwar
6. From Bright Skies: "Matka Boska Zielna" by Maja Trochimczyk
Congratulations to all the nominees! Their poems are copied below. In some cases, the layout is not correct online and cannot be fixed. Apologies to the poets.
Migration
Feel the warm breeze taking a rest
Among woods and valleys.
The ground is rich soil that leads
Into one shimmering blue lake.
Steps ripple in the water
That surrounds mountains.
The setting sun illuminates
A cloud-covered sky,
Tree leaves become golden
Phoenix feathers.
Evening darkens to night,
Letting go of the chaos
Allows for true freedom.
Dreams continue with
The writing brush chasing
Memories.
Taste the newly brewed wine
Of life, untainted by pollution.
Amidst scattered clouds,
Swans are journeying home—
The mind can’t help but join them.
(c) by Bory Thach
This poem was selected for submission to the Pushcart Prize committee. However, another poem was nominated as the best poem in the entire anthology by fellow poet Mary Elliott. It is quite a honor, so here's the second poem by Bory Thach.
Memory
Sometimes, under a full moon,
raise a cup to the clear sky in holy
reverence. Pray for lover’s safe return.
Intoxicated by loneliness—
I can hear you sing,
ever so softly.
Time passes by like flowing water,
like the cold edge of a blade against
my skin. I speak with joy. I laugh.
Turn around and look
at the lifetime
of passion.
Let us be carefree. Let’s wander
toward the horizon. I only wish
for all my days to be as bright as you.
Even in my dreams, your eyes
guide me with light. I can stay
in this world
forever.
A Room Full of
Boxes
If that box could be mine, I would fill it
with love letters or needles and colored threads.
The tiny silver one I would fill
with pink face powder to put in a purse.
I wouldn’t take the wormwood chest,
its lock closed, rusted on, keyless,
for it is not the box, but the treasure within;
that box camera,
a photo inside still unseen,
a thin case, long and narrow, to carry pencils
and a pink eraser, water color paints.
Lying open on a table, a hand carved chest invites
and I crawl in. Someday, maybe, this chest will
then fall from a lightning fire, a storm
which pulls it screaming from its roots.
If I Rise
If I rise up past the sunI will keep a pointdown in the greenI will not cast all my anchors upI will still touchthe tiny trees that swaythe weeping branches
If I hide behind the moondark shadows painton planet’s hills, beama long ray on moon’s quietI will still leavemy thought, brushthe wings of birdsin Earth flightForm greeting
If I try to fathom spacemark deep tracesin the unknownI will not rise up foreverpast the fallen friendsremaining loved ones grievingThose caught in Earth’sendless turning
of the dep and silent sky
At Times, I Find Myself in Time
1
The beginning must begin some-where/time.
And before the beginning begins, the nothing—
immaterially substantial—must end,
must slip
from what isn’t is to what wasn’t will be,
into and out from (thus through) being—
existent to exist—
to what can/will/has never be/been again.
It might be that I have begun. I may be so that I may.
2
hour by hour,
none but the emergence of The Hours.
The present becomes the present
when I go where I am to go
when I am to go there
in order to find myself,
if not where I had thought,
then some juncture equally important,
as being where and when I may
(or may not) be is integral,
is the most that I can ask for.
3
Unfixed form of time’s spheroid lattice,
of time’s fluidity of flux,
where my waited-for world
is fashioned and recast for the first time…
again.
Now is never now,
since the present becomes the next now;
thus, the now-next
departing into a sequence of future presents,
unendingly next and now
and now and then.
4
Time, whose beginning and end are its middle,
whose middle is always the middle for me,
whose lapses are where time is crossed by time,
whose crossings connect a cross-stitch of lives.
I wake to each existence,
to existence’s every,
to and from the ether of dreams’ to-and-from,
out from and back to the day’s midway.
5
Memories of tomorrow, aspirations for yesterday.
Genesis comingles with the end’s remnants.
I move through time that moves me
and moves me through,
retrograde through past to meet the ever-presence
of what come—
sightless as blinding—
for me to chance to grasp that after the aftermath,
what is will never was.
Tomorrow unended, yesterday unbegins.
6
And the day’s minusculia amalgamates
with the blinding silence of yesternext.
Narration of oblivion and the single motion
as progenitor of all future maneuvers,
including the crawl of the day‘s‘ sun(s)
traversing an alternate continent of sky.
After the ending ends, I falter to find
that the shadow on the sundial is only my own
while I stand steadfast to look at the time,
hat it’s just the beginning begun to begin
again,
that it’s just another always, as usual
as never.
7
No—tomorrow. No happy endings.
Yet, tomorrow I will say tomorrow again
since it will simply be a day, such as a day is such.
Yesterday: the ghost of a legion of thoughs.
Today: configurations of wasn’ts and will-nots,
desperately hunting the omnipresent elusivity
of is.
Today is tomorrow’s yesterday; therefore,
yesterday is inevitably tomorrow’s today.
No happy endings, not due to sorrow,
but since nothing ends.
Elseless, I become the momentary.
Joy in a Careless Breeze
Oh! Where are the forests and lakes
I long for? Ripple of feathered wings
and curls of water that sing. Wishbone
afloat. Smudge of dust on our faces
knees and hands that clasped walls
of rock, mud, fossils, language of lichen.
Rain-song on my head We sing soaked
drenched with joy untrammeled as wing
bone. Oh! Where the forestsand lakes
I belong for? Fragrance of wet wood
cedar trickling with fresh breath rising
of latent wilderness whose heart
beats in mine own. I must walk far
from here to there where wisdom beads
fall from treetops scattering auburn leaves
on unaware sleepers. Where are the forests
where we can sprawl random as a forgotten
daisy lost as a forest flower about to burst–
bloom with limitless joy in a careless breeze?
Prana, ruah, chi…
breath stirs in all directions
shimmering new leaves
Matka Boska Zielna
~ for Mother of God of the Herbs (August 15)
Look at the greening hill slopes charred by last year’s wildfire—
that’s magic. Look at the mountain sunflower that grew
at the edge of the asphalt on Oro Vista road, it already blooms
out of nowhere—that’s magic, too. The postcard-size garden
by the old, wooden house, a shack, really—fills with flowers
every spring. Fruit appears on orange trees after bees collect pollen.
The scent of sweetness, the cheerful noise of bee wings—
is it not far more miraculous, a thousand, a million times
more delightful than the 100 floors of steel-metal-glass
of skyscrapers proudly pointing at the sky? Incomparable
with a patch of weeds, nature’s miracles of renewal.
How proud we are of our empty metallic constructions
that will rust in the jungle, abandoned, like stone pyramids
of the Mayas, shrouded by vibrant green of leaves and
branches. Thousands of years of human fame obliterated
by the steady, living, fertile abundance, the overflowing
force of life, of matter, our Mother.
Roots, shoots, and tendrils spread out, germinate,
flow through the soil in search of water, nutrients,
life, more life, ever growing, ever richer, dancing,
singing the abundance of being—the song of creation
we are—we are—we are—we are all—
we are one—one—one—
(c) by Maja Trochimczyk, first published in Quill and Parchment
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