‘migration’ garners honorable mention in spiritual literature competition

I am thrilled to share the news that my poem, Migration, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Writing Competition sponsored by Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature. First Prize went to a work of nonfiction; two Honorable Mentions were given each in the Poetry and Fiction categories.

Tiferet’s self-described mission is “to promote peace in you as an individual and in our world. Our poetry and prose are dedicated to bringing you closer to spirit and higher consciousness through the written word. Tiferet is a Hebrew word meaning reconciliation of opposites, the heart, compassion, truth. On the Tree of Life, it is where the material and spiritual worlds meet. Tiferet the magazine is a multi-faith publication, presenting a variety of religious traditions as different paths up the same mountain.”

Not certain what might accompany the honor, since I haven’t received official notice but simply stumbled upon the news today on the Tiferet website. For me, however, the profound joy at being recognized in the spiritual literary arena, in a journal that features work by some serious heavyweights living and dead, is enough. Oy! I am certain that my Grandmother and my Father are beaming from above.

BTW, this poem first appeared on this blog on August 25, 2008, under the title “poetry for the nomadic soul: migration.”

For another winning poem, (re)visit the post, “well, dang if i didn’t grab first prize in the “inaugural poem we should have had” contest!”

Migration
By Rachel Snyder

Here is where I lay my head
Where I have proffered my heart time and again in absolution,
At this very juncture I extracted the juice from an overripe pomegranate
Stripped off a smocked robe devoid of fasteners
Knelt beneath a river of bliss that choked my bloodstream with its acrid sweetness

And shook my fist defiantly in the face I had stroked tenderly mere eons before.

Here is my port of storm
My underground railroad lugging along an oasis of liberation,
Two rivers confluent in the language of ornate limitation
This unmapped cacophony of intersecting lines and concurrent spheres
Littered with etched footprints askew in the breath of restless sand

Mocking my every move with its erudite solidity.

Here I seek a deep shred of nourishment
The unmistakable stench of recombinant DNA wends through my brain,
Taking up residence in caves noiselessly vacated by wanderers besotted and adrift
Awash at sea in the primordial tears of unborn nebulae
Insistently begging to be shown the higher ground

Peering into my eyes and gazing beyond unknown ellipses of abnegation.

Here is a waystation for the soul’s undoing
The familiarity of nowhere grazes dermic underpinnings,
Floods a riparian desert with outpourings of eternity run amok
Every empty vessel is filled to overbrimming
The sublime and sublunary meet in a shuddering of ecstasy

The balm of Melissa no longer soothes.