art ~ spirit ~ transformation
e*lix*ir

e*lix*ir   #16
Twin Birthdays 2023
Poetry
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Editorial

The Art of a Loving Correspondence

The Writing Life

Trust in Poetry by Tami Haaland

Features

The Beautiful Foolishness of Things, A collaborative work by poet Sandra Lynn Hutchison, composer Margaret Henderson, and painter Inger Gregory
Writing Music for The Beautiful Foolishness of Things, by Margaret Henderson

Poetry

Heather Anne Hutchison
Victor Kulkosky
Linette Kuy

Essays

The Art of Losing by Victor Kulkosky
Yearning for Water: The Story of a Traveling Quilt by Bradford Miller

Personal Reflections on Bahá’í Texts

Fire and Paradise by James Andrews

Letters

Dreaming of a Better Iran: A Letter to Our Fellow Citizens by a Few Bahá’í Students

Translations

“I Want to Walk With You” translated by Bashir Sayyah

Comics

Ruhi & Riaz by Eira

Voices of Iran

Keeping the Eternal Garden by Maryam Afzal and Saam Mozafari
Mrs. Mansouri’s Mission
Nothing but the Sanctity of the Desert
Five Days

Interviews

Art and the Creative Process: An Interview with Hooper C. Dunbar by Nancy Lee Harper
An Interview with Erfan Hosseini, Santur Player by Mehrsa Mastoori

Arts

Paintings by Hooper C. Dunbar

State of the Art

Books for Children by Allison Grover Khoury

Looking Back on Books

Forty-eight Fragments by Imelda Maguire
The Divine Melody: Song of the Mystic Dove by Lorraine Hétu Manifold
Walking to Martha’s Vineyard by Franz Wright
Soul of the Maine House by Bradford Miller

Films

‘Abdu’l-Bahá in France by Perry Productions


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Ann Sheppard

VICTOR KULKOSKY

Survivor

I don't have the math
to calculate the odds,
how a sea turtle,
shell cracked,
flippers drooping,
could come so close,
only a sheet of glass
between us that day
on Jekyll Island.

He, an injured survivor
taking refuge
in a new home
and me, a survivor,
taking refuge in libraries,
nature sanctuaries
and museums.

Maybe the only survivor
in the nest, the turtle
followed the light
of the full moon,
enormous at its perigee,
to the ocean, passing others
who slipped and tired
in the shifting sands
or fell prey to seagulls.

I know the turtle’s mind,
the impulse to survive.
for I have lived long
in my sanctuaries,
I have lived to tell of it —
how the most stalwart
of living things will find
their way to light.



Victor Kulkosky
Bio:   Victor Kulkosky recently retired from a more than twenty-year-long career in community journalism, during which he covered local government, education, crime, culture, and school sports. He made special efforts to cover girls’ sports and less-popular sporting events. In his retirement, he is undertaking a systematic study of the Bahá’í Writings as well as pursuing his interest in creative writing and photography. He is cautiously exploring how to weave the Bahá’í Faith into his creative work. He spent the first half of his life in New York City and now lives in Fort Valley, Georgia. He has journalism degrees from Fort Valley State University and the University of Georgia.