Anna Cates


THE ELUSIVE QUEST

Night falls over Africa. Ezekiel’s wheel whorls in circles. The city swallows in electric light Jacob’s ladder, stairway to the stars . . .

Behind the dark curtain, an ancient past, when Mother Earth, Ala, dodged Shango’s thunderbolts, and Olokun, the sea god, rose from the Atlantic on mudfish legs, in each hand a grand lizard . . .

Today, the Rozi still dance, and masked forms still celebrate the dead.

sojourn . . .
pushing forward
on mudfish legs

THE SEEKER

. . . faith is a phenomenological construct nagging parasitic conviction paradise retains capital importance maranatha doctrine recreates re-imagined moksha nirvana we posit speculative interrelations parables and representations re-interpreting them leads to the gods perishing heaven or hell animal mineral or vegetable the weal and woe reincarnation to transubstantiation we ponder an inescapable fate soul travel and stars so inexplicable so vast . . .

a candle burns
in dark window—
frozen starlight

Anna Cates is a graduate of Indiana State University (M.A. English and Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction/English) and National University (M.F.A. Creative Writing). Her first collections of poetry and fiction, The Meaning of Life and The Frog King, were published by Cyberwit Press, and her second poetry collection, The Darkroom, by Prolific Press. She lives in Ohio with her cat, Freddie, and teaches education and English online.
 
 
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