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Using Socrates’ trial as his point of departure, the author spins out a meditation on wisdom, the divine, justice, grace, and desire like “an arrow in the chest.” “We cann…
COVER FEATURE
Belief in an Age of Intolerance
Jaume Plensa’s Tolerance statue and Rosemont Pedestrian Bridge, Houston, Texas / Photo by Patrick Feller If a profligate comes to you with news, make sure you understand it…
An old Japanese maple in the Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis / Photo by Kent Burgess thewaysofthegarden.squarespace.com In this brief essay, poet and translator H. L.…
From Yousef Khanfar’s project Humanity at Large, in cooperation with the United Nations. Khanfar writes, “These photos are impressionistic images that show human beings as islands within the…
Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914, oil on canvas, 69 x 85 cm, private collection My village sits on a circular platform. The gate of every house faces…
There’ll be no more mother. We’ll have to live nowWith the looks on the faces of our friends,And half-open windows, and lamps that go onBy themselves, and an egg standing on a plate. Last night I dr…-
Sam Roxas-Chua 姚, Pilgrim, 27 x 51 in., sumi-e and squid ink. www.samroxaschua.com Still of our world, dear father, in your graveOr at my winter window, looking hardInto a life you never kne…
The 200,000 lights in the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation in Paris represent the number of deportees sent from France to Nazi concentration camps. Photo by Zak / Flickr Martyrs of the Deport…
Photo by C.P. Ewing / Flickr "The sky has never seen such a moon” The sky has never seen such a moon, not even in its dreams,No water could ever extinguish the fire of its light, Look at my body,…-
Photo by C. P. Ewing / Flickr Rumi remains the most popular poet in America today. To many who claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” his poems represent direct spiritual connection with a h…
Valery's "cemetery by the sea," Sète, France / Photo by Mathieu / Flickr An Encouragement by Yoo An-Jin “The wind is rising!We must try to live!”So said Paul Valéry.How shall I adopt that Frenchman’s…
For more, read Daniel Simon’s interview with Ted Kooser, “Starving for Order.” The Constellation I was on my way home from a party,ten-thirty, a dark winter night, no stars,a few snowflakes drifting…
Harvey Dunn, I Am the Resurrection and the Life, 1926 / Courtesy South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota For more, read two new poems by Ted Kooser. While in Lincoln to attend the r…
Photo: Ath-Har Saeed / Flickr I play on the water. It’s not completely necessary or required, but things flow under the treeslike a gentle melody. Day unto dayuttereth more lo…
Mona Nicole Sfeir, The Maps of Our Making (detail), 2015, acrylic, chalk, collage on canvas. Political maps are human constructs that have continuously changed since the first maps were scratched ont…
Menashe Kadishman (1932–2015), The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1985, cor-ten steel, 15' 1" x 15' 5" x 9'. Kadishman’s sculpture “was partly inspired by an experience the artist had while se…
Agostino Arrivabene (b. 1967, Italy), Androgynous, 2016, oil, gold leaf on linen, 50x40cm. Courtesy of the artist. Religion is at its best when it becomes a countercultural forc…
