Ever since I began Bewilderness Writing in May of 2020, I have been astonished at the quality of writing in our groups. Whether experienced or beginning writers, we are all equal in our small group sessions, and doing the best we can to keep pen to the page in a guided free writing, prompted by a poem.

I am proud to show off some of these talented writers and hope to make it a regular feature here. Often, the most raw and beautiful pieces of writing are the result of a stream-of-consciousness “mess on the page” written in class. Please enjoy!

QUICK LINKS:

How to Live With

by Lydia O’Brien (Inspired by Wendell Berry’s “VIII, 1992”)

I don’t know

how to live,

yet, with loss.

They say this is how you live with loss,

but I don’t want to. I don’t want the well-wishers,

the too much food, the Jesus had a plan for him.

I don’t want the long silences stretched to long years.

How many years has it felt like just yesterday?

I don’t want to. Live with loss.

I want to ask loss,

could you ever forgive us?

can you hear me?

Maybe, I could live with loss,

I swear, I could live with loss,

if it was you,

back with us,

again.

Lydia O'Brien hopes to one day be an up-and-coming poet from Northern Wisconsin.

Roshi

by Fiona Owen

Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs

When he was a pup, Mabon taught me the world's ways, being Buddha-dog in disguise, how

what arises can and does pass away,

especially with a little help,

for Mabon was indeed in those days
a conniosseur of objects and most precise
in his choosing

for he gave lessons in non-attachment
and impermanence

with great regularity

as on the occasion when he brought me
the wooden heart my love had given me
one anniversary,

beautiful in its grain,

the size of my palm, symbol
of our years together.

It

had been lifted

for chewing

from the shelf of precious things.

The world is your path, said Mabon,
in so many words, and here's what's left
of your heart.

He gazed at me then with those puppy-brown-eyes unclouded by thoughts of right and wrong,
all Zen in his black robe and white socks.

And so, friends, yet again, I sighed
at the world's woof ways
and bow wowed low

before raising to greater
heights the shelf of my precious things.

Epigraph: Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

The Vast Dignity in Wanting

A found poem shared by Christie Bates

We have come into this world

with a very simple choice

which we have to make,

knowingly or unknowingly,

every day. We can choose

to see our wanting

as the wanting that breeds shame

or as a wanting that transcends pain.

Let's recognize together

for a moment

the vast dignity of wanting Love.

Let's recognize the vast difficulty in wanting permanent

Love from things that change.

There is a vast dignity in wanting

Love, God, eternity and peace, and

an immense pain in hoping to find it

where it doesn't exist.

There's nothing wrong with what we've done.

It simply hasn't satisfied the hunger.

We know that searching out there

doesn't work. We've been burned

too many times. Our desire

to satisfy the longing of the heart in the world's terms

is un-workable. Yet we are afraid

that if we turn inward to look for Love we won't find it.

The only important spiritual question is, "What do I want?"

The deepest question we can ever ask ourselves is, "What do I want?

Do I want more of what's out there or do I want what will keep me safe?

Do I want to change and get better and be perfect in someone else's eyes?

Or do I want to know that I'm okay?

Do I want to find a Love that doesn't require me to change?"

We have to decide which is the cart and which is the horse.

"Do I have to get better to find Love,

or do I find Love and then get better?"

Found by Christie Bates on pages 86-88 in The Compassionate Presence: Meeting and Greeting a Love that Will Not End by Stephen R. Schwartz

Sleepover

by Regina Dilgen

Whatever it was that lived in my best friends’ houses, we discovered it during sleepovers.

Sometimes it was just me and another friend; sometimes a big sleepover party.

But always I got a glimpse of another family.

What it was like

to have this boy

be your mean older brother.

To have this other mom

who seemed mad at something having to do with us kids.

To have this dad

who seemed to be making some kind of fun of us little girls,

when he said, “good evening, fine gentlewomen,” as he bowed low and toasted us

with a heavy tumble of some dark drink, and us standing expressionless and flat, in our footie pjs.

You dwelled in their houses, when you spent the night.

At the Quaker School faculty house

right on the campus where your friend’s father taught,

you shared in the communal dinner with students, as you learned how to pass the thick. warm bowls.

Later your friend’s mother played the organ and sang bedtime songs,

“There’s No Place Like Home” and “Home on the Range”

Prompt: Danusha Lameris, The Visitor

Regina Dilgen was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Studies from Florida Atlantic University. She served as Professor and Chair in the Department of English at Palm Beach State College, Lake Worth, Florida, where she taught several courses, including Women in Literature. Regina and her husband, William Tignor, live in Delray Beach, where she writes, paints, and walks on the beach. Her daughters Mia, Francesca, and son-in-law Ben always make her proud, and, along with William, they share her love of learning and the arts.

The Gift

by D. M. DiLillo

We had called hospice. Morphine helping my father drift toward the end. We stood around his bed all of us waiting and watching including my father’s two older sisters. We breathed every labored breath with him.

Sometime, that last morning, my father woke up. Clear of eye and mind, he looked at all of us and asked for his sisters to come closer. As they leaned in to him he looked at them and smiled, “Don’t be afraid. It’s beautiful. I have to go. I have to get back on the train. It’s beautiful!”

He smiled at all of us and closed his eyes.

My name is Dave DiLillo and I live just outside Boston in Watertown, MA. I’m a retired semiconductor sales engineer and now works as a SAG actor in films and television series shot around Boston, as well as a Standardized Patient for Harvard, Tufts and BU Medical Schools.I’ve performed in several live theatre productions and even a little stand-up comedy.
I’ve had (3) works published in 2020: a short story, “The Steamer Trunk” in Volume 3 of A Feast of Narratives by Tiziano Thomas Dossena and Idea Press, available on Amazon and two flash fiction pieces published, “The Gift” published in *The Dewdrop* and “The Showers”published in *The Centifictionist.*

Where I’m From

by Christy Allen

(Inspired by a poem of the same name by George Ella Lyon)

I am from concrete stoops and coal dust,

from Carolina mountain dew and Santa Anna winds,

from tropical paradise and Texas prairies.

I am from no name cathedrals,

from solemn call and response.

“May peace be with you.”

I am from late night laughter, whispers of candle flame,

wild fennel, plastic Rosaries,

and learning to pray with the larks.

I am from fragrant tomato gravy,

the bubble of simmering braciole,

the crack of perfect pizzelle,

and the slip of wooder along the tongue.

I am from lazy library afternoons,

and secret siestas with Robert Frost;

from small notebooks crammed with doggerel,

daffodils, dandelions, and bleeding heart;

from woodland wanders

To collect wockets in my pockets.

I am from bases, camps, and forts,

from hat starch and boot bands,

and stiff camouflage hugs,

from airing only the clean laundry on the line.

I am from Edward and Carol,

from Calabria, Naples, and Donegal,

from the Duke's mix.

I am from hard work and hand-me-down values,

and finding happiness right where I am.

I am from a crazy quilt...

just one block in a mighty comforter,

stretching back and back through the generations,

bringing my own small colors,

my own fragment of warmth,

to this too-cold world.

Christy Allen is an academic librarian in South Carolina. She started writing poetry when she was 9 years old, primarily to share with family and friends. She has been published in The Dewdrop and the annual program for the Sub-Librarians Scion of the Baker Street Irregulars.

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Ellis Elliott

Ellis Elliott is a published author and poet. Join her Bewilderness Writing Workshops and use free writing to find yourself and your voice on the page. Order her poetry collection Break in the Field.