by Luke Krueger

Dramatis Personae:

Elihu, male: dubious of Moses’ plan.

Miriam, female: Moses’ sister who trusts in his seeming to lack a plan.

Place: At the shore of the Red Sea

This play was commissioned by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in DeKalb, Illinois in 2015 and performed as part of the Holy Week Service.

Miriam was played by Madeline Lyons.

Elihu was played by Ryan Massie.

Production note: For the performance large swaths of shiny blue cloth were placed in the main aisle. When the sea begins to rumble, the children of the congregation made the material undulate like waves. Upon the sea opening they made walls of blue alongside the aisle. Miriam and Elihu exited down this path, and they encouraged others of the congregation to follow them through the sea, so to speak.

Miriam and another Israelite, Elihu, are at the front of the congregation, in front of the alter. Miriam is writing calmly. Elihu paces, fretting. Miriam seems un-phased, calm, a contrast to her companion.

                                    MIRIAM

What’d he say to you?

                                    ELIHU

“You only have to keep still.”

                                    MIRIAM

So…? Listen. Stay still. You’re getting me worked up.

                                    ELIHU

Can you believe that though? Keep still? Keep still? Don’t really have much of a choice. There’s a big swath of water in front of me, and Pharaoh’s army behind me. Keep still…that’s great advice. What a great leader. Know what I think? I think he doesn’t have clue what to do, and all he can say is, “Keep still.”  What a yutz. Bunch of desperate twaddle if you ask me.

                                    MIRIAM

Was that all he said, “Keep still?”

                                    ELIHU

He said something else about “Do not be afraid and stand firm” and then some nonsense that the Lord will deliver us. That we’ll be astonished by what the Lord will accomplish for us today. And I was like, “Moses, do you see that huge cloud of dust beyond the horizon? That’s Pharaoh and his army with spears, and chariots, and swords. And what have we got? Zilch! Bupkis!”

                                    MIRIAM

Did you really say that to him?

                                    ELIHU

(Beat) No. But I wanted to. I should’ve. You know what one guy said though, and I was like, “This guy gets it.” He says to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to the wilderness to die?” That was some serious chutzpah.

                                    MIRIAM

That was kind of snarky.

                                    ELIHU

Snarky? No, I was like, “Preach, brother!”

                                    MIRIAM

It was uncalled for.

                                    ELIHU

Uncalled for? It was the truth. You wanna know what was uncalled for, dragging us out here with no plan. I mean it all sounds great: “Turn the Nile into blood, frogs dropping from the sky, flies swarming, animals dying, and so on, and then that grand, ‘Let my people go’ pronouncement.” Sure, that all sounds great, but I mean, at any point did Moses forget the fact that if all that worked; and we are released from our bondage; and set free from Egypt: We’re still in the middle of a desert!

                                    MIRIAM

Aren’t you just a pleasant ray of sunshine. (Beat) If you’re not happy here, you don’t trust in Moses, well, you know where to find Pharaoh’s army. Go see if he’ll take you back. I’m sure he’ll be in a forgiving mood after that whole, death of the first-born male in every household thing.

                                    ELIHU

I’m sorry. I know Aaron and Moses are your brothers. I’m just, I’m a little dubious. Moses just doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. After we voiced our concerns, do you know what he did? Walked off and prayed. Said he needed to talk to God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any burning bushes anywhere, so I don’t know where he’s gonna find God around here. (Beat) What are you doing?

                                    MIRIAM

Writing a song.

                                    ELIHU

That’s nice…and completely inappropriate.

                                    MIRIAM

Oh, come on!

                                    ELIHU

We have the biggest army in the world bearing down on us, and you’re writing a song?

                                    MIRIAM

Wanna hear it?

                                    ELIHU

(Mocking) Wanna hear it? No, I don’t wanna hear it. You know what I want? I want to not die. (Short pause) How can you be so calm?

                                    MIRIAM

Because I trust in the Lord and my brother.

                                    ELIHU

You trust in the Lord and your brother. Well, shut the front door!

                                    MIRIAM

Shut the front door is right. Because we did, and we painted lamb’s blood on that door. And the Angel of Death passed over us. All this time, all these things, the river of blood, the frogs, the insects, none of that resonated with you?

                                    ELIHU

(Beat) I confess, I was somewhat impressed. (Looking off) Look at your brother. What is he doing now?

                                    MIRIAM

And you haven’t noticed that since we’ve been talking, a giant cloud has rolled in and been placed between us and Pharaoh’s army?

                                    ELIHU

(Still looking off, not hearing her) He’s standing there with his staff in hand, arms raised, just looking at the sea. What’s he thinking? He’s just gonna open up the sea? Now look at him. (Yelling off) Oh, yeah, Moses, I’m sure just waving your hand over the sea is going to make it just split open.

The sea opens up. Elihu is flabbergasted.

                                   MIRIAM

Did my brother say anything else to you?

                                   ELIHU

(Astonished) “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

                                   MIRIAM

So are you going to stand there gawking, or are you going to wade into the path God has cleared for us.

                                    ELIHU

You first.

                                    MIRIAM

You still don’t believe.

                                    ELIHU

Miriam, I’m a pragmatist. I believe by some miracle the sea has parted, but what’s to say Pharaoh won’t be able to pursue us through this path?

                                    MIRIAM

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

                                    ELIHU

What’s that?

                                    MIRIAM

The song I was writing. He hasn’t taken us this far to let us perish. (Beat. Elihu looks down the aisle, the open path of the sea.) Age before beauty. (Elihu is hesitant.) We are no longer to keep still. Go!

They both exit down the aisle.

Curtain

Luke is an active member of the Episcopal Church in Vermont where he serves in a number of roles at the parish (vestry), diocesan (chair of the Missional Vitality task force), and national (alternate delegate for the House of Deputies at the General Convention) levels. Additionally, in service to the church, Luke serves on the board of the Brookhaven Treatment and Learning Center. He is currently in the process of heeding the call to serve as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Luke lives in Manchester, Vermont with his wife and two daughters. He teaches English at Arlington Memorial High School, where Norman Rockwell’s children attended school. Though a playwright, Luke’s poem “A God Joke” was published by the Purpled Nail.

by Garry Breland

He worked so hard to select his rod
Then the line of proper weight and taper
Knotted to backing and wound onto the reel
To be finished with leader and tippet
For the finest presentation.
With greatest care to entomology
He matched the hatch with hand-tied
Caddis, coachman, stonefly, or midge.
And his cast was elegant of loop and lay
The fly resting light as a feather
Upon the surface film, and then
The retrieve—masterful to entice—
While we watched without a rise.
Rank on rank and row on row,
Pew by pew our upturned faces
Fooled the fisherman, for we were there
Not to feed but to see the show.
An hour a week we masquerade as trout,
But really we are just suckers.

Garry Breland lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he recently retired (mostly) from a 38-year career in higher education. Now he has more time for writing and freelance editing. His wife is an English professor and also his best friend and muse for much of his poetry.

by Iván Brave

Teresa burst out of the tattoo parlor, half her chest in bandages.

Middle of a day, middle of the week. And Teresa dropped by an ice cream parlor, to get her favorite. Pecan. They only had vanilla bean, though, her second favorite. The young man behind the glass, with too many pimples and an overbite, avoided her gaze, as he plopped the scoops for Teresa.

“You’ve never seen a cancer patient before?”

The boy grimaced. “That’ll be 6 dollars.”

“I ordered three scoops, not two.”

“9 dollars, please.”

He acts as if he were dying, thought Teresa. She threw herself out.

Her heart was slamming against the cotton bandage. Her fresh tattoo. Not even finishing the vanilla bean, passing a public hospital on 2nd, Teresa hurled her cone at the tall building, flung that ice cream high. But her arm was weak, so it did not hit the window she had aimed for. Instead, splattering in the parking lot, somewhere past the wall. But without a sound, causing a sense of disappointment and vague anguish to course through Teresa.

“Get home, take my meds, pass out. Get home, take my meds, pass out.” Teresa was talking to herself now. “Home, meds, pass out.” And after 11 years in New York, including 4 of college, she finally felt a part of the city now, just the part that is always dying. Making way for the new. All these strangers.

When Teresa awoke, the stickiness of not knowing what day it was crawled out of her throat and into her eyes, which she rubbed, before removing the bandage to see the art over her mastectomy.

The bandage burbled to tear from the skin, snatching bits of scab and a husk of dry blood as it lifted. There. Fleshy, inky, but arresting. Her first tattoo, her I-miss-you, over the scarred and empty left side of her chest. A quote from her late fiancé, penned on a scroll, under an eagle.

Wash it with soap, she remembered. Tears flowing. A smile in bloom.

Iván Brave lives and works in his hometown of Houston, Texas, where he begins his PhD in Spanish Creative Writing this fall. The themes dear to him are youth, pop music, and the artist struggle. Notably, he does not have any tattoos. Learn more at www.ivanbrave.com.

by Diane Elayne Dees

Thunder all night,
trees heavy with relentless rain
crashing into transformers—
no sun, no light,
no joy, no sleep,
but then: a green
dragonfly on an
orange lily.

Diane Elayne Dees lives in Covington, Louisiana, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. In addition to writing poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, Diane publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

Jupiter’s Song

Dear Ones,

I have become what I wished.
I have become the rain
the ocean the sky and
the wind.

I brush past your cheek
and muss your hair
just after you have fixed it.

I am the hurricane
flooding environments with
knowledge and equipment
central to all-knowing.

I am the rain.
I made it.

Cry for the pain, but please,
not for the loss, for I have become
one with The Creator and
we argue over the
smallest ordeals.

Be at peace, friends,
for you will see me –

in every raindrop
and every mid-winter snowflake

my blizzard will coat your heart
in love and life and remember,
compacted snow
brings shelter
and warmth.

I am the rain.
I made it.

So smile as you remember my spirit,
my soul is resting in unity
with nature.

I made it.

Do not follow me, dear ones –
You have more to do there.
I can handle this end of things.

Oh, guess what?

Children love to splash in my puddles
and jump into my snowbanks
and surf on my waves where they
smile and rejoice because

I am the rain.
I made it.

I am surrounded by the wind
and the sky and nature’s secrets
I wish I could share

Feel the breeze,
taste the air,

I am with you.

I am the rain.

Sometimes God Speaks to Me

Not Joan of Arc,
but the flames.

 
Pachydermia

I wonder if elephants really have
an amazing memory, or if their
matriarch has just been doing the job
for so long, she knows exactly where
the necessities are hiding.

Graceful giants roam the deserts
and jungles,
majesties of their beings –

we should pay more attention to
these professors of life
following an established path
left by ancestresses

still, among us are rogues
who dare to follow Frost instead,
because sometimes the only reason a path
was less traveled
is because no one
dared to peek.

Emily Vieweg is a poet originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Her debut full length poetry collection “but the flames” is available through Finishing Line Press. Emily’s work has been published in Soundings Review, Art Young’s Good Morning, Proximity Magazine, Indolent Books “What Rough Beast,” and more. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota where she is a mother of two, pet parent, and university program assistant.

by Barry Casey

“In the beginning,” said the Word.
And it was good. Later, we understood.

The world is constant creation,
one luminous drop after another.

The beginnings coalesce, adhere,
elongate, divide, mound roundly.

They meld into one another,
slide aside, strewn in wondrous confusion.

A child stretches to catch a drop
of Beginning, fresh in the moment.

This will be her memory. It will
glisten, evolve, luminesce in time.

She will remember it most clearly
at her end, like a benediction.

Barry Casey believes that faith and doubt combine with mystery for a working life-map. He is a Christian influenced by Taoism. He taught philosophy, ethics, and communications for thirty-seven years. He is retired from teaching and writes and edits full time.

by Sarah Holly Bryant

I have always known
the worth of Bandit
I have always known
his loss would be profound
I have always known
we were one
he calmed my restless spirit
he chased away what I could not
he heard what I could not
he guarded me when I needed guarding
he was a true Lhasa
the ancient guardian
whose spirit has reunited with
his ancestors some 4,000 years ago

Sarah Holly Bryant lives in Vermont with her husband and two dogs. She’s an MFA student at Bennington College and loves to hike, fly fish and talk about the merits of New Jersey.

by Jack Eisenman

They say he’s king
Born of royal blood.
Heir to a throne
Unclaimed.
From heaven he comes
With winged hosts
And shouts of joy.
This monarch, they say,
Rescues captives,
Sets free the chained
To live unfettered.
Creator and sustainer.
God, they say.
Alpha and Omega.

But today, he’s a babe
Wrapped in a blanket,
Cradled in his mother’s arms.

Jack Eisenman is Professor Emeritus of Education and Religion at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has written poetry since the early 1960’s. Jack enjoys creating poems of a religious/spiritual theme.

by Scott G. Harvey

Creating pre-recorded lectures had become second nature to me, as the global pandemic raged into its ninth month. It felt all too normal to be dressed in sweatpants and a soup-stained hoodie sitting all alone in the basement speaking into a USB microphone. A cognitive leap had to be made to grasp that hundreds of students would ultimately hear the hopefully eloquent and informed utterances streaming from my mouth and into the empty room. Most would undoubtedly fast forward, tune out, or skip the lecture all together, but I still felt a sense of deep responsibility to instill some element of scientific literacy into the minds of college students who would one day govern me, teach my children, and/or sell me tacos.
The day’s lesson was focused on psychological research methods, and in particular, differentiating between anecdotal and empirical evidence. I sincerely hoped to challenge, and maybe even offend, my psychic believing, ghost fearing, god loving students with well-reasoned arguments regarding the unrivaled supremacy of the scientific enterprise and the nature of systematically-gathered, unbiased, replicable evidence. It was for these reasons that I was deeply unsettled, yet perversely comforted, when I did a simple mathematical calculation later that afternoon.
In a feeble attempt to add meaning to my life, and someday outlive my corporeal form, a few years back I’d commenced writing a novel. The recently completed and released book had been met with tepid reception at best, yet I was nonetheless proud of my creation. In an effort to spread word of my book baby, I had been running a 5-day free download promo of the eBook. Being new to the publishing world, I had no idea how many people, if any, would download my humble work. That afternoon, after teaching the dust bunnies in my basement about scientific reasoning, I added up the daily totals and was pleasantly surprised to see that the book had been downloaded one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two times. I was satisfied and hopeful that this newfound exposure would plant seeds that would permit my literary creation to spread far and wide.
The book had been dedicated to my father who had passed away exactly one month earlier after a 29 ½ year battle with multiple myeloma. My dad was a loving, intelligent, and wonderful man who fought long and hard for his family. A former physician, he was also an incredibly intelligent person and the most rational and logical guy you could ever hope to meet. He was the first person to read my completed manuscript in its entirety and was proud, and likely amazed, that this child of his, who used to begrudgingly do his homework, had now written a novel just for fun. Although long anticipated, my father’s death took an emotional toll on myself and our family. My wife was pleasantly surprised, and slightly unsettled, to find her typically anti-social and emotionally numb spouse teary eyed most days.
It was while walking my dog through the brisk December air later that afternoon that it struck me. One thousand nine hundred and fifty-two. 1952. The year of my father’s birth. Of all of the numbers that the downloads of my book could’ve accumulated to, it had to be this one. Having inherited my father’s skeptical disposition, I wanted to chalk it up to random chance, a selective abstraction, or some other biased cognitive grasp for meaning. On the other hand, a small part of me liked imagining, if only for a few moments with the cool breeze caressing my face, that my dad had found a way to signal to me from the other side. That there indeed was another side to speak of. And that he was okay. I was left with a profound sense of comfort at the beautiful absurdity of existence. Everything was as it was meant to be.
It wasn’t long before I chastised myself for entertaining thoughts based upon such anecdotal premises and was soon amazed at the clever neural firing of my left prefrontal cortex with its insatiable need to make sense of the cosmos.

SCOTT G. HARVEY teaches psychology at SUNY Buffalo State and resides in the Niagara Region of Ontario with an ever-changing mixture of humans, cats, dogs, and chickens. He is the author of the philosophically-infused bildungsroman Savagely Noble. His short-fiction has appeared in Short Story Avenue.

by Savannah Voth

See the world
encapsulated in a foggy rectangle: a green leaf
spotted with sky blue
or a blue leaf spotted
with the various green shades
of trees, bushes, shrubs,
shifting slightly in the breeze.
Roses bursting out, here and there,
pea flowers peeking from
behind the bean leaves,
winks of pink in a green sea.
As the mist on the glass
increases and drops begin
to roll down, it is finally clear to me
the pointillism of it all. A trembling
in blue and yellow, red and green,
like something Seurat might see
from his own shower window.
Vibrant vibrations, vast harmonies,
the overwhelming sense that
everything has a point,
polka dots dancing, part and particle
and petiole
of an immense organism.

Savannah Voth is a high school senior from California who loves to write and create art in many different forms.