“Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”  — Japanese Proverb on Wabi-Sabi Part I: The Street Was the Board He never meant to make something beautiful. He just needed a place to sit. The city had its own hum — the kind that seeps into bone, a low vibration of exhaust and fatigue. He’d found a corner near the shuttered bodega, where the concrete was cracked enough to remind him of riverbeds he used to walk as a boy. His belongings fit inside a plastic bag:

(meant to be read like a prayer said wrong on purpose) “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” That was the match you struck, Patti—flint against your own teeth. You didn’t sing me  into being; you simply said my name with your mouth unwashed, and I stepped out of the smoke. I was never housed in holy books. I lived in the pause before confession, in the girl who lingered at the edge of choir lofts, waiting to see if anybody else tasted the iron in their hymns. I watch

(Editors Note: The below poem and artwork was created by an unknown member of the rescue team that first reached the Donner Party as a way to process they horror that awaited him when he discovered what was left of them.) Under a sky of silvered dusk, The earth lies still, a breath held fast. Silent, the veil of winter falls, A shroud upon the past. Whispers rise in the brittle air, Ghosts of shadows, thin as mist. They dance where the cold has taken root, In a land the sun h