Renascence
Five Poems that Stir the Senses
What will awaken when silence is given permission to linger?
As in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, “Renascence,” we invite you to allow silence to sink into your surroundings and saturate your senses. Invite infinity to come and settle over you.
I. Sight
The Monarch
by John C. Mannone
Truly I tell you, unless you change
and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
—Matthew 18:3
A five-year old, as her parents tuck her in
at night, asks them to kiss her palms, fingers
splayed open. Says she now has power
in her hands.
Where did such wisdom come from?
Perhaps a sparrow adorning the fields
chirped and trilled it to the child,
or a dove, a haloed holy dove that
stirred a whisper in the wind and lighted
on her shoulder. Perhaps
she dreamt it in the shadow of her sleep—
a butterfly struggles to lift into the wet
air, its wing broken in the storm. A gentle
hand slips through the clouds and slides
under the butterfly, the nail-scarred wrist,
blood-stained palm touches the brokenness.
From the pierced hand, a dazzling fire-
light emanates—a gold flickering teardrop
enshrouded in scarlet—sifts through
the black net of veins. Slowly, the butterfly
folds its deep orange wings in silent prayer,
then quietly flits away rising to the heavens.
Wisdom doesn’t only come from old men
and grandmothers. Sometimes it is spoken
from the mouths of babes perfecting praise.
—Matthew 21:6
About the author: John C. Mannone has poems in Artemis, TEACH.WRITE, Red Branch Review, Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, New England Journal of Medicine, and others. He won the Emma Bell Miles Prize (2024) and Joy Margrave Award (2015, 2017) for creative nonfiction, as well as a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature. He has six chapbooks and five full-length collections; the latest, Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2024), was a top-eight finalist for the 2025 Tennessee Book Award. He’s a professor of physics who loves to teach science, math, and creative writing whenever the opportunity arises. He’s the recently appointed Poet Laureate for the City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee (2026-2028).
II. Smell
Moonrise by David Anderson --about 1943, rural Newcastle, California A sharp frost will come before morning. The two draft horses breathe lungsful of mist onto each other’s flanks. Above them, the oak trees arch up and out. Barely nightfall, the sky stretches each oak limb to its tip. The moon rises, and shadows of bare branches fall upon the two white horses, the feed boxes, and the corral. Out of the north, out of the shadows a snowy owl thrusts its great white wings down, just clear of the metal corral gate and disappears into the pear orchard. The horses do not stir.
About the author: After Anderson retired from the UC Davis Library, he returned to the muse who found him when he was in high school. His poems have appeared in Brevities, California Quarterly, Crux, Epiphany, Song of the San Joaquin, Time of Singing, and other journals. One of his poems has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His debut book is What Was Within (2022). He lives in Northern California.
III. Hearing
The Metronome Joins Me
by Cameron Miller
I shove my lamplit prayers
through the rests between crowded notes,
Vivaldi’s Spring unraveling into Stravinsky’s,
mocking the metronome on my nightstand.
I snap the cord of my headphones, press my head
to my bedside, kneeling in the void.
But the cruelest joke to an earnest ear
and a flitting mind is the cockroach of tinnitus,
waiting under everything else.
I shovel my fingernails into my palms.
If I could, I would hook a thread in both
my eardrums and fish the static out.
Mid-swing,
I pin the metronome’s pendulum
and force it to join me
in the nights that follow.
That dull ringing lowers its knee also,
scanter and scanter, into staccato,
like rain pattering on Heaven’s roof.
And by my nightstand,
a hymn swells through the drywall.
About the author: Cameron Miller is a poet, portrait photographer, and filmmaker based in Georgia. With his typewriter, he writes live poetry for strangers at events and markets. You can find him on Instagram: @novelwonder
IV. Taste
What mercy tastes like
by Maria L. Mecham
I am thirsty for the nothingness of God.
Pour the world out of the room,
let me taste of His sweet silence.
I love to watch him speak
with His hands, how they move
like my mother’s, gently laid
across the foundation of my trembling.
Light smiles through muddy waters,
the quiet of a low tide. The sea knows
what mercy tastes like.About the author: Maria Mecham put down roots in Southeast Alaska seven years ago, trading hours in traffic for the great Tongass National Forest. She enjoys exploring duality and hues of humanity within her prose and poetry. You can find her in Upon Learning That Anthology, Tidal Echoes, Prosterics, Humana Obscura and searching the forest for soft patches of moss. You can find her on Substack:
V. Touch
fleeting flowers
by Ollie Burgess
when they prayed in Ancient Jerusalem
they enclosed themselves in the comfort of walls,
the necessity of shadow — they had of course
been sunburned. but when you pray in Portland
or Atlanta, lay down amid the wildflowers
until your body-spirit seeps into their roots
and listens to petals that only think of blue —
your eight-foot walls, halls, doorknobs,
sanded floors, and mirrored windows
are too cramped a cosmos, stamping
you into atheism and scoliosis, bended branch.
even Nebuchadnezzar was wise enough to walk
in gardens, searching for God when the swords
went quiet. and don’t you remember the poet
said fleeting flowers out-dress all of history’s
kings and coronations? don’t you remember
that lilies only bloom when God walks by?
pray near one, because there, the air
might still be stirring from the rustle of his robe.About the author: Ollie Burgess is a graduate student and piano teacher. She lives in a small town west of Atlanta and writes poetry for the lovers of cathedrals and enchanted forests. You can wander through her poetry forest by visiting her Substack:
There’s more to experience from our latest issue!
And one more thing…
We have an exciting opportunity for visual artists to be a part of a limited edition zine to be distributed at the Cultivate Conference with The Way Back To Ourselves. Find the details below!
Cheerfully,
The Clayjar Masthead
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