Stonework is published by Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts college located in New York’s rural Genesee Valley. Stonework seeks a diverse mix of mature and emerging voices in fellowship with the evangelical tradition. Published twice a year, the journal reflects the arts community at Houghton College where excellence in music, writing, and the visual arts has long been a distinctive.

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  • Issue 6
    Poetry by Paul Willis and Thom Satterlee. Fiction and interview with Lori Huth. Essay by James Wardwell, and student poets from Christian campuses.
  • Issue 5
    Poetry by Susanna Childress and Debra Rienstra. Fiction excerpt by Emilie Griffin. Art from Houghton's 2007 presidential inauguration and a forum on women writing.
  • Issue 4
    Matthew Roth--new poems. Diane Glancy--from One of Us and an interview. John Tatter-on gardens and poetry. The Landscapes of John Rhett. Stephen Woolsey--on the poetry of Jack Clemo. James Wardwell--on Herrick.
  • Issue 3
    Poetry by Julia Kasdorf, Robert Siegel and Sandra Duguid. Fiction by Tom Noyes. The portraits of Alieen Ortlip Shea. An anthology of Australian Poets
  • Issue 2
    Thom Satterlee - Poems from Burning Wycliff with an appreciation by David Perkins. Alison Gresik - new fiction and an interview. James Zoller - Poems from Living on the Floodplain.
  • Issue 1
    Luci Shaw — new poems with an appreciation by Eugene H. Peterson & Hugh Cook — new fiction and an interview

Monday, May 08, 2006

Why We Rehearse

James Zoller
(for KB on her wedding day)

Once
you imagined this day
though a cousin was bridegroom enough
and another cousin stood in.

Your gowns trailed badly,
train and hem, dragging fore and aft,
tripping your small feet, slid
to the toes of grandmother’s castaway heels

–the unfilled, elevated heels
clack-clacking like tack hammers
against the hard tiles
of her broad front hall.

Such a grand procession, gown
slid down your thin shoulders,
the thin bop of pomp and circumstance
from your own too red lips.

Once
you imagined another part
as it should be, who
stands where, with whom,

what to say, even how
it should be said –
step and turn and speak,
a little louder, but somehow defer . . .

until your cousin
who wasn’t, yet,
groom enough himself
lost interest anyway.



We have taken pictures
to hold against this day.
It is a picture I describe.
Once when we imagined

we failed to imagine
beyond that day.
But we prayed.
And when we prayed with

clacking heels and too red lips
coming again and again to mind . . .
when we prayed
we prayed toward this moment,

not for shoes that fit
or makeup properly managed
but for your own deep happiness
and for a man who would be groom enough.