p h o e n i x

Literary & Visual Arts Journal

2007•2008

Language and Literature DepartmentEastern Mennonite University

Harrisonburg, VA

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StaffKoren Lucke Sunil DickGeneral Editor Visual Arts Editor

Editorial StaffErin Conefrey

Adam DefibaughDanalyn SprowlAndrea Zilinsky

Kirsten BeachyAdvisor

Phoenix Recognizes:Kirsten Beachy, for her invaluable support as faculty advisor

The outstanding Editorial TeamDonovan Tann, for lending his experience and advice

Jesse Lucke (Alum), for layout consultation and cover artMike Reno and the EMU Print Shop

Student Government Association Tremendous thanks to all EMU community contributors and participants

For consideration in our next edition, send literary and visual artwork to:phoenix@emu.edu

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Contents

Editor’s Invitation

Åke Åkerson �5, �5

Jim Bishop 9, 16, �1, �4

Laura Esch �0

John Gascho 7, ��

David Gish �1

Jon Helfers 1�, 19, �8

Glenn Kauffman �4

Jake King 14, 17

Chris Lehman ��

Koren Lucke 8, �9, ��

Katie McGhee �6

Shino Mirawdaly ��

Nicole Ruser 10

Kara Schlabach 4, 15, �0, ��

Jenna Serrels 6

Donovan Tann 1�, 18, �6

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“eye” — Kara Schlabach

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“To write, to be able to write, what does it mean? It means spending long hours dreaming before a white page, scribbling unconsciously, letting your pen play round a blot of ink and nibble at a half-formed word, scratching it, making it bristle with darts and adorning it with antennae and paws until it loses all resemblance to a legible word and turns into a fantastic insect or a fluttering creature half butterfly, half fairy.”

The Vagabond

These words from French novelist Colette can be extended without reservation to the composers of visual media who, weaving light, perspective, and chance, enable the beholder to become just as absorbed as they are in the ambience of their piece.

Gratitude is due to the many contributors, who wrapped up a small part of their souls in words, colors and designs, and offered them to the mercy of this publication. Representing a beautiful array of backgrounds, life-paths, and conclusions, they meet in this these pages as a company of watchers, of listeners, of truth-speakers. It is this editor’s hope that the reader will encounter him- or herself in this book, and experience some corner of life exposed and illumined by these works.

Koren LuckeGeneral Editor�008

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Earth DragonJenna Serrels

I am a candle in the night;A flame that gives life;Fire consuming;One who looks to the starry skies and laughs in dark’s tight closen talons;The clenching of danger;Night of my soul.

Find me in the colors of water;The shifting of day;In yourself;Creaking of hollow trees whisper my name;I listen as the last leaf trembles forgotten;Lost to be found; Searching, waiting, breathing, reaching for the star upon Time’s shoulder that flashes blindingly unreachably guiding.....exhaling;The path lengthens......courage dear heart!

Jagged granite needles prod beneath;Sands of Haunting breeze circling the passion behind the mask;I cry, I trust, falling, abyss, my soul, sinking....Tides... oceans raging within dry bones shredding, peeling away emotion;Tearing, ripping, digging, clawing spirit, freedom cast out;The window yes;NO! The door, take the door; Faces of terror, waves of fear, and depth beckoning unconsciousness.....so I rise.

The Waters of Life flicker forth the fire;Wild within the weakness of ashes;The phoenix shall rise and then perish, repeat.Embers of strength;Beauty in the lost, the forgotten.....forsaken;I seek such;Fragile glass of a world, I come forth bearing these gifts;My flame to yours;Mine heart’s aging blood splattered upon the altar of shadows streaming down toward the stones which hold stable the archway to Heaven.

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“US Capitol” — John Gascho

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maybe Koren Lucke

one day you’ll see the life you savedblossom like firebright-wild, like firethe childlike eyethat did not cryfor never knew it fearbecause it worethe whitest heartand held your smile dear

one day you’ll seethe one you soughtthough wind and cold in dark, and dew,but never caughtthat one will stop,a sun splashed face,like dandelionsand dappled blue,and offer upa love-drenched fistgrasping a lightholding it outto you

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“Grant” — Jim Bishop

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Sarah LeanneNicole Catherine Ruser

Michael still thought about Rhonda more than he should. More than he thought he should, anyway, not that he knew of any guidelines for such reminiscing. No one would have blamed him; instead, they would have pitied him. Which is why he told no one. There was no use thinking of “what might have been”, so he thought about what she was like before it all... And then his thoughts would jump months ahead to the baby. For too short a time, Rhonda held her, they called her Sarah Leanne, and Michael fought in vain against his tears. And then they came- the secure, self-assured, churchgoing married couple. The ready couple. Michael and Rhonda had agreed that this soft, smiling couple would give Sarah Leanne more than they ever could. Michael soon learned just how much a sincere, mutual agreement could leave a couple feeling unsuitable for each other’s very presence. They took their pained, shameful exits from each other’s lives- within months? Maybe weeks. Michael didn’t remember anymore. There had been nothing worth remembering, after they relinquished the child they called Sarah Leanne. As the fall semester of 1986 rushed to a close, Michael’s memo-ries took on a new flavor. A mathematical one. He had been just barely twenty-one then... now his thirty-third birthday approached. The child they’d called Sarah Leanne- whatever her name was now- would be cel-ebrating her twelfth birthday in a few weeks. The date was a Thursday, so the party was probably the following Saturday. Michael knew the “when”, but not the “where”, the “who”... And how? How could she be twelve? He remembered her birth-day and figured out her age every year, but never before had it been so hard to grasp. Never before had he run it over and over again, re-checking his math in case thirty-three minus twenty-one wasn’t twelve anymore. When it turned out, (for the hundredth time,) to be twelve, he turned his anxious probing on the incredulity itself. Well, why couldn’t the girl be twelve? And then he knew, one muggy afternoon when he was on bus duty. The girl couldn’t be turning twelve because there were girls at the school who were only turning twelve. Girls who only approached him

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if they were really stuck- if there were awful bullies, or if they missed the bus and couldn’t get back in the building without a teacher. Girls who were intimidated, despite his friendly bus-duty demeanor, because he was an eighth grade teacher and they were just sixth-graders, timid newcomers who were misled to believe that middle school teachers were all automatically meaner than elementary school teachers. Next year they would be taller, bolder, and there would be new little shy ones. Two years from now, this year’s sixth-graders might be Michael’s students. They’d hopefully respect him, but very few would still be afraid of him. (He wasn’t that kind of teacher.) After almost ten years of teaching, this all seemed very natural- the cycle of middle school life. Until Michael threw Sarah Leanne into the picture, that is. Then it seemed insane. Then he was back to thinking, Is she really twelve? Wait, I’m almost thirty-three now... But suppose the child they’d called Sarah Leanne was really twelve. And suppose that soft, smiling couple, who Michael had known by first names only, now lived around here. The idea sent a shud-der through him, a reasonable reaction to a violent shift in his reality. What if Sarah Leanne- well, the girl, whatever her name is- goes to this school? Would he be able to pick her out of a crowd? He knew she was white; that narrowed it down to only about half the girls in the sixth grade here. But what color was her hair? Was she tall or short? Did she look more like Rhonda or Michael? What exactly did Rhonda look like, again? This was pointless. Michael had moved from the Bay area all the way down to L.A. to avoid this kind of hopeless speculation- after he spent six months double-taking almost every time he saw a woman with a baby in public. The odds that the ready couple, (who Michael at least knew lived near San Francisco in 1974,) would have also moved down here, putting their girl in this very school district- it was practically im-possible. Besides, even if she was somehow here, and even if he did some-how recognize her, there was no way in hell she would recognize him.

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Love Affair in a RainstormDonovan Tann

The rainbow pools on the unwaveringstill surface of moving water, the eyesof the oil slick unblinking—the laboringstampede at the grate taking the grim ways:lily-smattered landscape left chokingblindly in the swirl at the storm sewer.We are together in the rain, yokingunder jet umbrellas. The next allureafter the rain stops will be when the windreclaims umbrellas like nature’s recompensefor fixed floods, water moving, on a pin,the axis of the human world’s sequence— a dun repetition, dull melody chanted on the sheen of the human sea—

Its strophic simplicity like the rainin the throes of season. The mode has changedand circles about the center—the gainof wisdom in repetition, the rangedroam of tidal foam, the same wave againbut water different; the gentle rustof the open air. At our call, openwounds new again – new desert dryness mustnot be quenched with old rain. The leaves collectin windblown stacks like temporary shacks:an austere countermelody injectedwith the movement that frozen water lacks. The still host of broken trees is spilled in the wind. A radiant color filled

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the passing of cold rain. We look on the gleamand recall lost umbrella rains, damp sockscast aside inside the door. Mud prints teemwhere our feet had been. With all ruddy looksand shy, joint-captains of our lusty boat,we fed desire coal from our stockingsand smoldered in the rain. We made a moatof cascading newspapers and oil ringsfrom the water shivering in the drain.Your umbrella is shredded; we pick upa sopping newspaper, ink smeared in rain,nature’s din powerless to interrupt our still Eucharist – bodies defying power in the wind to chill, soak, split and shower.

“Girl, Vietnam” — Jon Helfers

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Eternal BlissJake King

It looked delicious. White with a mellow hint of sunshine yellow and the scarlet of a waxy crust.. The smell was just as tantalizing. Gouda, undoubt-edly Gouda, and not a cheap one either. His nose twitched with anticipation and he shuffled his hind legs. It was just out of safety, a mere foot out from the bottom ledge of the counter and a moment’s dash from the safety of the table legs, but still, what if the cat was waiting somewhere? He didn’t smell her, nor could he see her anywhere, but the tabletop was just out of sight, as were the tops of the cushioned chairs. She could easily be sitting up there in just as much anxious anticipation as himself. Everything but the awaiting ecstasy had been pushed from his minus-cule mouse brain. He opted to do it and charted a short course out away from his corner hole to the right, along the undercarriage of the table, straight out to the waiting morsel and in one swift motion he’d cut left and be back under the relative safety of the counter’s lower edge. That would leave him only to scurry back to the safety of home and delight. With a hop backwards, a rise of the haunches, and a quick forward burst, he bound out of the hole and under the table, sliding effortlessly through the forest of chair and table legs, eyes fixed on his destination, ears perked for unexpected noise, whiskers breezing back to brush along his neck; the feeling thrilled him. He left the cover of the table and, hardly thinking of the cat pos-sibly looming above, arced left. Something clicked momentarily and the black orbs fixed pointedly on the cheese narrowed. He registered the oddity of the wooden board beneath his certain dinner, the wire loops to either side, and the metal thrust beneath and through his food. But it was only momentary. His mouth peeled back and the full weight of his body hit the cheese, through and past, the titillating scent full in his face, tongue lapping at the cheese within his wide jaws, eyes squeezed shut. Thats how they found him the next morning, with his body crushed be-neath the powerful arm of the trap, just below his rib cage. The woman picked up the trap and body before her children could see and tossed it into the garage waste bin with a shudder. Had she looked hard enough, she may have been able to see the nearly imperceptible up-turn of the mouse’s lips-the closed eyes of a creature in pure bliss.

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“foot” — Kara Schlabach

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“Penny Power” — Jim Bishop

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How to Rob a BankJake King

Choose a bank that has no cameras, no guards, only one teller and absolutely no self-proclaimed heroes in the queues. Odds are this won’t happen, so do the next best thing and make friends who have nothing go-ing for them. You’ll undoubtedly get one of them, probably Frankie, who, unbeknown to any of you, has a few screws loose and will botch the entire operation in an obscene show of emotion and self-hatred. You’ll deal with that later.

When you arrive in the stolen van, sans license plates, make sure someone stays outside in the van, with it running. This is key; when you and Beth come bursting through the bank doors with crazed Frankie not far behind, you won’t want to wait for Craig to start the van. Also, use codenames: Beth’s real name is Lisa, Craig’s is Jeff, and Frankie’s name is really Frankie. He blew his own cover; don’t worry about it. Your codename should be Jesse or Luke, something from the Westerns you adored in ado-lescence.

What little money you do glean from the tellers needs to go in large, black trash bags. They’re imposing and intimidating. The woman cowering behind the potted fern in the corner is immediately reminded of a body bag by the size and color of the trash bags. She’ll whimper quietly and make no more trouble as will the two suited gentlemen lying face down on the tile floor. Your primary concern is the old coot who refuses to lie on the floor “because of his back.” You’ll fain rage at his first refusal but become progressively uneasy after his second and third. In the end Beth will blurt something like “lets just get the hell out of here” over the growing intensity of the man’s refusals and you’ll all make for the door.

Once out of town you won’t hear or see any sirens down the reced-ing country road so you’ll stop and ease Frankie out of the van into the towering rows of corn. He makes no objections and hardly seems to notice. Craig says you should kill him before he screws up any further but Beth’s humanitarian side takes over. You leave him bound and gagged amid the morning buzz of flies, far enough back in the greenery to be invisible from the road. No one says it aloud but you all hope he’ll never be found.

There’s a knot in your stomach as the morning sun blazes through the rear window. You wonder if it’s possible for your neck to burn under such conditions. No one speaks. You’re only consolation is that you’re head-ing West. You’ve always wanted to go West.

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Oh, DreamchaserDonovan Tann

Waking with feet in the tingling water,she quavers, semiquavers of undulatingmelody ripple gelatinously, now in two,now in the triple meter in the bubblingvaults of uncreation. I have fed her to this,but not without regrets and my share tooof dreamchasing. I pressed her hand untilit made a mark, red.Nadir – I cast my eyes to the earth,and roll them in the dust, placing themin your hand like pearls and we watchthem like the cue and eight, rotatingbetween your bony, crackly fingers.Rare too silences all unmade in looksof amber and sugar cane, light bentlike iron over your olivine skin.She says now the sky is made of amber;that we are frozen in the momentof rain;that all that is and ever shall beworld without end lies here standingat the foot of the waterfall, waterthrashing, gnashing its tormentupon the gentle river, wreaking itsjustice, hatred, mercy out in meteddoses, in metered amounts straightto the artery.A midwife makes money, makes a badsituation disappear on the side. It’s allone, the same act. To burn and beconsumed are the same, to have beenconsumed a degree of the same, andI hear in the distance the echo of a voicewhich is the same as the sound beforethe sound of the voice, at the leapof the womb,et noluit consulari quia non sunt.

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“Boat, Vietnam” — Jon Helfers

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Untitled Laura Esch

When I was eleven or twelve, my parents purchased an old eigh-teenth century log home on the outskirts of town limits in Woodstock Virginia. The view in any direction was breath taking. In the spring, the fields provided a blanket of lush green and in the fall, the hills that surrounded our rustic home, painted a masterpiece of red, orange, yel-low and browns.

My hide away from my parents and three sisters was an old oak tree that stood higher than the other trees on a small hill behind our home. The sun’s rays glistened on the green leaves as they danced to the music of the earths wind. The branches forgiving each step as I climbed higher and higher. The rough textured brown and gray showed scars of nature’s fury, but yet protected what was fragile.

As I grew older, my father retired from his chaotic job in Wash-ington and decided to build a workshop on the top of the small hill behind his home. Not knowing what fond memories I created as a young teenager, my father cut down my oak tree. I was devastated when I came home to visit my family and saw that the mighty oak was no more. I walked up the hill and stood in awe of what my father had done. I rubbed my hand across the flat surface stump and stared at the unsymmetrical circle pattern and reflecting back on my youth and the times my oak tree provided me comfort through life’s trail and tribula-tions.

I believe we are a lot like nature and I, my oak tree. I refuse to walk in the shadow of other trees but instead, dance in the sun, to the music of my own journey through life. My emotional and physi-cal scars have healed but yet remind me of life’s unfairness and what I have overcome, and gives me great strength and motivtivation to prevail in what lies ahead. I believe in forgiveness to those who have “stepped” on me, but more importantly ask for forgiveness to those who I may hurt.

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“Court Square”— Jim Bishop

I believe my circles will tell a story of a journey of healing, per-severance, and triumph. As I grow my roots of moral and values that give me nourishment will give strength and direction to those who are born unto me, just like the small seedling that grows from a stump of a wise old oak tree.

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Smile and Flutter Chris Lehman

Amidst the bustle and beeps and clicks, a bed sat off to one side, clean and starched, everything white except for the red line feeding from the bed to the monitor. And from the bed, and almost from within the pillow, came a smile. The faces surrounding the bed reached for it hungrily, needing it. The woman had been especially desperate, grasping at snatches of comforting nurses and conversa-tions with doctors, but only clutching the sterile air. The faces had been white and grave for so long, but with this glimpse of hope, a beam of light, reflected off their faces, instantly illumining their cheeks and sparkling in their eyes.

This smile was not a happy, cheerful smile, but more of a peaceful one. The faces knew it was obviously forced, but they ac-cepted the smile gratefully, as a sign of a beginning and an end. As the faces shared the smile, they passed it back and forth with smiles of their own and whispers of reassurance, the woman especially eager in this give and take of hopefulness.

“Oh, look at his smile.”

“And his eyes are opening, too!”

“Should we get the nurse?”

The boy had fluttered his eyes simultaneously with his smile, proving to the others that he was still with them. But after precious seconds of the silent smile and flutter, he drifted off even farther. Deeper and deeper he sailed, through the black night, through the gray fog, until he reached a place of white stillness and gentle light, not unlike the white, soft snow that collected on the gray stones and fell silently among the woman’s tears as she placed the red bouquet quietly on the ground.

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“Bono Speaking” — John Gascho

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“Avery” — Jim Bishop

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There is Hope in Sun Åke Åkerson

Murky days of cold brought me the dull ache of despair.Everything closed in and I was short with my friends.The world was darkness.A season of light was vague.Would I see another?It was not good.

Once I knew joy.Once there was sun.Now it was only dusky always, forever.Work days began in the dark and ended there too.Winter was a miserable place.Much as death, it surrounded me and would not let go.Good was gone.

Walking to the car, head tense on neck and looking at the ground,I noticed a shaft of light in an unlikely quarter.On the back of my hand it shone with clarity,To show the hairs on my hand.Such clarity made me think of halcyon days of fall,When I could see the mountains and the sea and fog at the shoreline.Memory is good that way --Reminding me of better times,Recalling things that please.Straightening my back I found the sun.

Who knew the sun would shine?

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Speak to the RockDonovan Tann

Fire draws a river line || across a starved stone,making water from the dry ground: the air flowsin waves. Speak to the rock, speak to the earth—

For all its fire the ocean rises, || the icebergs crack,the icy burghs shatter and we are trappedin its wiles and floes—in the waves of the air

visible in the afternoon || when the sun makesa breathing ocean of rising heat, returningback again to the sun in a routine rapture.

Two kinds of desert || birthed of fire and ice,and one creeping necrosis of the soul spreada bitter infection over us, Ceres’s miscarriage.

Speak to the rock, || take off your hat and spitat our barren edifice, waving your staff likea madman, like a beast that feasts on wild

desert milk and honey. || Bring your own headon a platter and serve it to us, our fiery Caliban;we did not know who it was that sent you:

you had no return address, || and we have been cruel,we have been dry, but we were born a desert people,cracked with drought, blinking dust from our eyes.

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Strike the rock, || kick at it with your bare feet,and let us throw ourselves upon it in despairing

hope. I have seen fire flow from the rock,

the molten misery || rising in smoke and birthinga breed of hollow rocks and light burdens,

but abrasive. Caliban, we did not mean it—

We were used to the storm || and its terrifying rain,and we did not learn to love the water for itself;

we did not hear the lessons in the wind or tempest,

and we scattered || across a desert of blowing sand,smoldering blacktop, the cloud hovering before the citythat does not yield even a drop of dry and burning rain.

I beg you tell me, || who is the chimera?Which is the man crafted of stone and iron,

and shamed into believing the image Prosperity

demanded of me, || damning us together?We were all lost in the storm, but left alive

to founder on a further shore together,

churning in the river, || burning in the sand storm.Speak to the rock for us, speak to the desert,

and chase us forward into the thundering Jordan.

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“Forbidden Palace” — Jon Helfers

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HoldKoren Lucke

Trueyour scent burns likea sunset meltsthe wilds of a secret placeimparts to mea winsome graceyet leaves untouchedthe utter cruxthe sacred space —

But sheshe isthe green canopy of summer lightand fireflies like starscupped in tiny fingerslaced with tiny scarsand i don’t expect you to understandhow filling your armsis not half as sweetas holding her hand.

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“hand” — Kara Schlabach

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Introduced Factor is Poorly ReceivedDavid Gish

The man sat there in the chair, which was the only piece of furniture in the white room, and thought about how he could use it as a tool to defend himself when they came in. There was only one door and it was firmly locked with no window. The walls were bare and there were no blunt objects that he could swing or club with, nothing sharp to stab with, and nothing really to hide behind. Nothing but this chair he was sitting on. So he stood up and grabbed it by the back of the seat to pick it up and brandish it in anticipation of the fight. Dread swept over him when he realized that the chair was fastened to the floor. He began to cry. He wondered what he had done to deserve this. They were going to come in here and hurt him, he was sure. Why were they locking him in here like a dangerous animal? He cried harder now and the fear became anger and frustration. He took a step back from the chair, then charged forward and stomped the back of the seat with the bottom of his heel so as to shove the chair over. The chair didn’t budge and by New-ton’s third law he was thrown backwards in response to the force and fell pathetically on his back. He cried harder now and writhed on the ground. Two creatures on the outside looked through the qua-si-vis walls at the man inside, and goggled their large, con-cerned eyes at his antics. They spoke to each other in grunts and beeps, and if you would have heard them and happened to understand their language, the following idea would have been conveyed: “the pet does not interact well with the rep-lica of ‘seat’ we have provided for variety and comfort.”

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“fist” — Kara Schlabach

ReliefKoren Lucke

But I will give my heart to nothingno strength but mine will master meI know how near I stand to knowingthough I’ll not step into belief Unrooted, still I will indwell this shadow of an understanding:nothing will heal except my healingnor will relieve, except relief.

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The Land I MissShino Mirawdaly

It’s not a country but it has a nameIts fight for freedom is an endless gameIt has a flag but it does not standIt has people that aren’t in commandIt has grass but its color is red upon it are the marks of the battles it’s ledIt has no father, a lonely orphanBut to everyone its doors are openIts sky is blue but the clouds roll in On tears and pain its days beginHow can earth cry and scream in pain?When it wants to be free but it’s on a chainI love the land here but it just ain’t the sameI really miss the land that has not nameMy people like to call it KURDISTANSave it from bloodshed only God canThis is not said for you to worryBut the land I miss has a sad story

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untitled — Glenn Kauffman

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Putting Up Strawberries Åke Åkerson

Strawberries on the counter,Are mostly in jars for the freezer.They await a dark day in winter to bring back the sun, And hope for a new day.Red marks sun’s warmth on green leaves; Sweet, they hold energy to overcome nadir, For momentum to something better.

Life in young boys and girls reminds us of the cycle. Life is flowing in hope. Life is moving: be ready.

It takes reminders to budge us from our torpor; We’re not eager to see an end to the days we know.We would roll on forever, Not so much for love of today but fear of else.Beyond lie regions we must explore alone; Ahead of today we hold no guarantees; It worries us to think of such places.

Strawberries bring me hope, That tomorrow will provide keys to see, That tomorrow is good for it is God’s.

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BelongKatie McGhee

I try to forget, but you will always remain.To me, it is myself that I must blame.Silently killing and slightly stabbing.I didn’t realize the love that you were grabbing.So much intensity, passion, and trust,But not anymore, I really messed it up.I didn’t need you to be in that part of my life,So now you are gone, and I must deal with the strife.You walked away from me, the love you once felt is gone.I never felt this way, and now I no longer feel like I belong.Your smell, your thoughts, your laughter,That is all that remains hereafter.I should have said yes and went on living,But now it is too late, there is no more giving.Standing beside your lonesome grave,Myself is the only one that is to blame.I am solemn, numb, and cold.You, once more, I need you to hold.I need the protection, the love that you once gave,But you are eternally gone, the only comfort I have is your grave.I should have known better,I should have loved you forever,I should have held in there and been strong.Because no I know with you is where I belong.