‘Joy’ & ‘Spin Faster, Earth’

Clara Gillin is a rising artist, photographer and writer- as well as highschooler balancing her time with school work and many extra curriculars. She doesn't shy away from challenges, starting multiple of her own clubs and managing top grades while exploring her interests. After winning a district-wide writing contest, she's submitted to many different artists’ outlets in hopes of being discovered and sharing her art with the world.

Joy

Alone in the safety of new love 

And together in the harmony of constant alignment

We fused our hearts to the deeper parts

Of the cosmic sources of feelings 

Words, unable to capture the meanings 

Or form the unfathomable edges of feelings,

Dissolve their pieces first into letters and lines 

Then to blank pages unknown authors prescribed

Outside of fate, languages falter and fail to convey

Sentences struggle and dictionaries sit blank

Heavy with dust, save for the one clear word 

She’s drawn on my heart.

spin faster, earth

and twist upon your axis 

with anxious hope after longing

speed the journey round yourself 

that marks the torturous days 

of absence and polar separation 

accelerate your pace in lock step 

with your understanding

of the pain I feel 

created by the distance 

of days 

spin faster earth 

and pull forward that reunion 

that brings wildflowers to my heart 

and opens fields in my mind 

F. S. Blake is a Bronze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. He is a published photographer, traveler, advanced SCUBA diver, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and proud husband and father. He has poems published or forthcoming in O-Dark-Thirty, As you Were: The Military Review, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Line of Advance. His first chapbook, Terminal Leave, is available from Finishing Line Press. His poetry career began during his sister’s wedding.