The word “ruin” has a wonderful semantic texture. It denotes demolition either physical or moral: you can ruin a painting or a festive occasion. When applied to persons, as in “John is ruined,” it has an economic register. A state of ruin is one of collapse or overthrow, but not necessarily of annihilation. A ruined person is still alive, though depleted. The ruin of a temple or city is still a definite structure, perhaps even an object of beauty. The face of Milton’s fallen angel Beelzebub is “Majestic though in ruin.” In these different senses, it is possible to hear the resonance of the word’s Latin origin, ruere, which means “to rush,” “to hurry,” “to cast down,” or “to fall.” There is speed and downward motion in the word, a suggestion of gravity. What is ruined is heavy; it has the dignity of its former height.
So when James Matthew Wilson writes that human history seeks “To ruin everything without remorse,” he does not only mean that everything gets worse with time. His word “ruin” is in keeping with that stanza’s conceit of history as a “cataract” or waterfall. Man’s decline is not gradual but steep and violent. The poem gives some examples of this. A great painter who “Begets a school of hacks before he’s gone;” great thinkers who “Give way to pedants who can barely see.” Wilson’s chosen stanzaic form, the “rhyme royal” made famous by Chaucer, suits this traditional topos of poetic complaint—not only conventionally, but in the way that its alternating rhyme scheme cascades into weighty couplets at the end of each stanza. Yet the poem ends with a surprising praise of youthful discovery. When the young reader of poetry “feels its lines go coursing through his chest,” the twinned pumps of human heart and human art defy time’s cruel gravity.
Heather Cadenhead’s “BREAKING: Dragon Kills Again” features a fall, too. Its central action is the death of a monk by falling from the top of a chapel. This death, perhaps a retribution for past sins, both haunts and inspires the speaker: “I called / myself a cave keeper, / daughter of the fallen man.” It is in the context of this fall that the poem’s own act of creation takes place: “Instead, I / dipped string into wax— / building castles out of candles.”
Emily Maxson performs a vivid exegesis of Jesus’ parable of the pearl hidden in the field. Here, the speaker’s creative product is not a castle, but a heap of refuse: “Knee-deep in trash, I sorted my possessions: / Broken; Rotting; and Biohazardous.” Maxson’s wry sonnet turns on a transcendent moment of rereading—one that can only be accomplished with the help of a friend.
The pleasure of Ethan Jones’s poem about AI, “Beyond Contrivances,” comes from comparing its two perfectly parallel stanzas. Unthought-of opposites appear: “fast” vs. “saunter,” “busied with busy” vs. “anxious with unbusy,” “talk” vs. “pray.” The line-pairings are playful, not formulaic. Each rewards reflection. For all its pluck, though, the poem has a note of dread: the one perfect identity between the two stanzas is the line “It can write.” With the poet’s own vocation still under mortal threat, the violent cataract of history is still in view.
Johnny Ruiz and Johannes W.H. van der Bijl have both contributed meditations on biblical poetry—Ruiz on the Song of Songs, van der Bijl on Psalm 90. Both depict new life with gorgeous dawn imagery. Ruiz: “The blossoming of lilies, then upon / The fields, the doe looks on beyond the sea, / For the Bridegroom comes and with Him the Dawn.” Van der Bijl: “the pastures painted with what seemed / to gently sigh a promise of reprieve / from night that takes all colours to the moon.” In Ruiz’s sonnet, dawn is the final hope of eternity with Christ. In van der Bijl’s poem, it is the brightness of mortal life, which, if we have Psalm 90’s “heart of wisdom,” we know will soon give way to night. This poem’s sobriety does not dampen the rapture of Ruiz’s sonnet, but their juxtaposition reveals the emotional range of Scripture’s symbols. Holy wisdom includes both delight and severity.
William Kilgore’s contribution is the most severe in our selection, and one of the most frightening religious poems I have read in a long time. In the tradition of Dies Irae, and deeply infused with the apocalypticism of the New Testament, it hymns God’s power of “uncreating.” But it does so with verve and even humor: “Earth Day becomes irrelevant / when all gets trashed and gutted.” Still, the takeaway is not glee at the ruin of the cosmos, but a warning not to attempt to dictate to God. In the divine there is a trustworthy promise, but also a credible threat: “He may indeed.”
Finally, Eric Hutchinson ends our selection with two professions of frailty. Like Emily Maxson’s sonnet, his own sonnet “Lethe” bespeaks moral poverty: “What can I claim to have in my account? / A heart like flint that envies, lusts, and lies.” Against the ideal of heroic glory stands the verdict of the conscience. The Fall—not just mankind’s, but mine—confronts me most forcefully when I think about human greatness.
In each of this issue’s poems, a sign of hope appears in the ruins: the simplicity of prayer, the encounter with art, the beauty of the sun, fellowship over the Bible. At the endings of both of Hutchinson’s poems, this role is filled by a Sacrament. In “Lethe,” the resolution to “drown in the holy fount.” In “Sin,” simply “absolution, bread, and wine.” The trust these poems put in sacramental objects is quiet, even tentative. The full power of such things is hidden from us, but not to be discounted. May God reverse human tragedy by such ordinary means as water, words, and carbohydrates? Oh yes, he may indeed.
– Joshua Patch, Associate Editor for Arts & Poetry
James Matthew Wilson
All Worn-Out Bodies
The times being what they are, some will recall
The wayward father and his no-good son
Who brought about the family’s final fall.
The village women drove him out, that one
Who drank his stolen liquor in the sun,
Who answered every kindness with a sneer,
And, at the name of work, would disappear.
History seems a cataract downhill,
A crash of spray and foam along its course,
Inexorable, as if it had a will
To ruin everything without remorse,
Each generation swept along by force
From worse to worse, and nothing we might say
Deflect such dissolution from its way.
I noticed, even as a boy, how those
Who clung to faith could never pass it on.
The master from whose hand new styles arose,
Whose color made the epoch seem a dawn,
Begets a school of hacks before he’s gone.
And minds that spin fine thoughts in filigree
Give way to pedants who can barely see.
But, where some eastern province sinks in night,
Leaving all worn-out bodies to their rest,
A young man sets a book beneath his light
And feels its lines go coursing through his chest;
At once, the past and future are possessed,
Indifferent to the pattern we’ve perceived,
Who thought ourselves among the less deceived.
Heather Cadenhead
Distant Steeples
I keep my eyes fixed to the blacktop
and remember what became of Lot’s wife
when she looked back. If I turned into salt,
you’d pour me into glass shakers and use me
to season your rations, picking your teeth
of whatever you couldn’t consume.
I cleaned until my hands bled—you saw
the floorboard that refused to lie straight.
I crack a window—the church-bonfire
smoke still clings to my clothes—the clap
and clatter of flames a recessional hymn.
A different kind of blood must save me.
BREAKING: Dragon Kills Again
After Varlaam Monastery
I.
The monk stirred one too many
sugar packets into tepid coffee,
white crystals rising to the surface
like wild primrose spreading
over one too many graves.
He washed newsprint
from his hands, headlines
circling the drain with dregs.
A glazed wing grazed the pane,
shaking saints in stained glass.
MONASTERY BREAKS
BREAD OVER BROKEN
BONES, the next line read.
A brotherhood cast as a murder
of crows, cawing overhead.
Anonymous sources spoke
of monastic-order secrets,
cobwebs veiling footpaths,
floors buttered with mist:
Do they serve God or the dragon?
He touched a scratch
in stained glass, cracked
a window, then summited.
His last thought: Anne Shirley
on a roof, taunting Josie Pye.
He fell and fell, his habit
a flicker of color against
indifferent skies—cave walls
splitting and killing the beast,
eye for a gold-coin eye.
II.
I bleached broken rock and
slid flowers into sutures, the
clergyman my muse. I called
myself a cave keeper,
daughter of the fallen man.
But silence starts rumors
and rumors start wars.
Some believed I hid
the dragon still. Instead, I
dipped string into wax—
building castles out of candles.
Winter colors bloomed
and beamed star-white,
frost-circled windows
concealing my survival.
Emily Maxson
Sonnet on a Parable
It’s like a merchant, selling all he owns
To gain that precious pearl, they said. And so,
Knee-deep in trash, I sorted my possessions:
Broken; Rotting; and Biohazardous.
What if I burn it all? I thought, and took
My lighter. Click. Oh—try and—click. No good.
I tossed it on the pile. More trash. With all
The poise exemplified by a pissed-off
Raccoon, I crawled out and assessed what you
Might call my assets. Ah. Marketable.
Over a pint, my friend, he says, “Are you
Quite sure you’ve got that right?” and reads anew
This parable on which my worth depends—
“He never says that you’re the merchant, friend.”
Ethan Jones
Prayer
For the sophisticated
prayer is mere
superstition.
It is a practice
of those who
haven’t grown up.
They can’t see
God.
They can’t hear
Him.
A grown man
stumbles out
of bed,
bends his knees,
opens his mouth,
and prays.
Beyond Contrivances
It can make you fast,
more efficient, less
busied with busy.
It can write.
It can talk.
It can’t make you saunter,
more attentive, less
anxious with unbusy.
It can write.
It cannot pray.
Johnny Ruiz
The Dawn Breathes
A reflection on the eschatological hope of the Song of Songs
Until the Dawn breathes and the shadows flee,
When all is right and all night is no more,
When all shall come to All on golden shore,
Ev’nings gone and morning it shall e’er be.
Until the Dawn breathes and the shadows flee,
When His song brings forth the day as before,
And face to face we see the wounds, a door
To love, to hope, to grace, to joy, to glee.
Behold, the Dawn breathes and the shadows flee!
The winter is past, and the rain is gone,
The ripening of figs on the fig tree,
The blossoming of lilies, then upon
The fields, the doe looks on beyond the sea,
For the Bridegroom comes and with Him the Dawn.
Johannes W.H. van der Bijl
Moments
A commentary on Psalm 90:12
Before the dawn had gathered all her gold,
the symphony of birdsong had begun
to usher in the rising of the sun,
while morning mist lay doubled in the folds
of sleeping fields and all the world seemed spun
from silver strands of music. Soon enough
the sun would sparkle brightly through the blush
of cotton clouds, dissolving dew till none
lay twinkling on the blades of grass and leaves
of weeds, revealing shades of grey and green
upon the pastures painted with what seemed
to gently sigh a promise of reprieve
from night that takes all colours to the moon.
For well we know that all in life is lent
for moments that will all too soon be spent,
as dusk descends upon our afternoon.
William S. Kilgore
May He?
The fiercest storms play in your palms,
the earth cracks open on your command.
A good God, yet never a safe God,
fatal to fall into Your terrifying hands.
…
May He unleash mayhem?
Mayhem, may He unleash?
Indeed He may, when He decides,
with no more than sovereign speech.
Do not fear those who kill bodies,
limited in what they can ever destroy.
No! Recoil from the Consuming Fire,
swarms of locusts in His employ.
Earth Day becomes irrelevant
when all gets trashed and gutted.
There are no olive branches offered
‘til long after a world gets flooded.
All the frying, crying, drying, dying,
as the Owner of all acres may choose.
This is the One Who created everything,
equally skillful at uncreating too.
May He display His wrath?
What court will question that right?
Beware the field that gives no yield
when the buzzards all take flight.
May He unleash mayhem?
Mayhem, may He unleash?
May He say nay to all maydays?
Oh yes, He may indeed.
E.J. Hutchinson
Lethe
The ancient poets sing of noble deeds,
Of fame that can outlast the little span
Traversed by heroes mounted high on steeds,
With hearts like flint and weapons in their hands,
Who only for immortal glory plead,
Aware their bodies must obey the sand
That trickles through life’s hourglass, then speeds
To measure out their days with cold command.
But I am not an Alexander, I
Have no Bucephalus by which to mount
On wings of noble deeds up to the sky.
What can I claim to have in my account?
A heart like flint that envies, lusts, and lies.
To live, I must drown in the holy fount.
Sin
Sunday I wake once again to find
I still have Saturday’s lurid mind,
Needing absolution, bread, and wine.
Bios
Joshua Patch (Ph.D. University of Dallas) is a poet and literary critic from Texas, now based at Hillsdale College, where he teaches in the Education Department. His poetry, which often deals with Texas and/or the Bible, has appeared in Solum Journal, The Reformed Journal, and The Borough. His academic work focuses on the English Renaissance, especially Edmund Spenser.
James Matthew Wilson is the Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature and the founding director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas. The author of sixteen books, his most recent collection of poems is Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds (Word on Fire, 2024). The Strangeness of the Good (2020) won the poetry book of the year award from the Catholic Media Awards. The Dallas Institute of Humanities awarded him the Hiett Prize in 2017; Memoria College gave him the Parnassus Prize, in 2022; and the Conference on Christianity and Literature twice gave him the Lionel Basney Award.
A native Tennessean, Heather Cadenhead holds a degree in creative writing from Union University. Her poems and essays are published or forthcoming in The Rabbit Room, Inkwell, St. Katherine Review, Valley Voices, Arbor Vitae, Illuminations: An International Magazine of Contemporary Writing, Birmingham Arts Journal, and other journals. Her poetry has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations as well as a New Plains Review Editorial Prize.
Emily Maxson is a Biblical Theology teacher turned full-time mom, and host of the podcasts Halting Toward Zion (currently a high-school level survey of church history) and The Poetry Dojo (an aid for students preparing for recitation contests). She and her husband David live in northern California among a close community of artists, storytellers, and lifelong friends. She holds a B.A. in History from Hillsdale College, and is studying Greek at City Seminary.
Ethan Jones is the author of several books, published and forthcoming, that engage the poetry and theology of Scripture: Psalms in an Age of Distraction (Baker Academic); Psalms as Poetry (Baylor University Press); Prayer in an Anxious Age (Baker); Joy and the Resistance of Despair (IVP Academic), as well as numerous academic articles and essays.
Johnny Ruiz is the Associate Pastor of Youth and Family Ministries at First Baptist Church of Longville, Louisiana. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary studying systematic theology. He and his wife Anjelle live in the small town of DeRidder with their two daughters, Jolie Anne and Jane Evelyn.
Johannes W.H. van der Bijl, originally from Namibia, has travelled and worked extensively in cross-cultural settings in different countries around the world. He and his wife, Louise, serve as missionaries with SAMS-USA. They have two married sons and five precious, rambunctious grandchildren. He is the author of four narrative commentaries published by Langham Publishing. A collection of his poetry, “Of Psalms and Songs and Poetry,” was published by Wipf & Stock.
William S. Kilgore is a sociology professor residing in Houston, Texas. Discovering poetry in 2024 while recovering from a kidney transplant opened a door to a new form of contemplation. Initially writing primarily for himself, he was encouraged to seek publication. William began doing this in 2026, and has poems published or forthcoming in Westward Quarterly, foreshadow, Solid Food, StepAway, Verse-Virtual, The Dewdrop, LogoSophia, VoegelinView, The Raven Review, Ariel Chart, Cathexis, Soul Forte, Wingless Dreamer (anthology), The Raven’s Perch, Vessels of Light, Valiant Scribe, and The Calendula Review.
E.J. Hutchinson is Associate Professor of Classics at Hillsdale College and Director of Hillsdale’s Collegiate Scholars Program. His poems have previously appeared in various fora in print and online.
