Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

Error message

  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::__wakeup() should either be compatible with DateTime::__wakeup(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::format($format, $force = false) should either be compatible with DateTime::format(string $format): string, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).
  • Deprecated function: Return type of DateObject::setTimezone($tz, $force = false) should either be compatible with DateTime::setTimezone(DateTimeZone $timezone): DateTime, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in include_once() (line 143 of /var/www/html/prairieschooner.unl.edu/public/sites/all/modules/date/date_api/date_api.module).

Cisterna

Cisterna

By Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis

Well
Sister
there
will
be
water.

What are
those well
wishers waiting to be?
Tell them you are already sister
to the meadow's meadowness, the song's songing.
Will you ask them where they're headed, then say you're already there.

There will be water there.
There will be water.
There will
be well
enough alone enough for all and thirsters
everywhere will drink and drink and be

well. Believe me
when I tell you there
are miracles and there are miracles. We saw you, Sister
Extravagance, walk on water. Whatever
weighed heavy only buoyed you then. You knew about well
being when you hardly felt the will

to be. You are the living will
of every dragonfly, you worship the bee
and his honey-ache. You've known it well.
The honeysuckle that drew him there
is called Kissing-by-the-Gate. This body of yours is mostly water.
This body, Sister,

is called a field. This field, Sister,
has known floods and fires and maintains will
over the succulents and drinks up on holy water
every drop. Who blesses the kneeling bee,
his church of being? Our offering of pennies rolled down a hill. The wishing well,
the tithing, copper cargo paves the cellar of throat where there
gleams this knowing: We will be sisters and resistors, transistor
radios singing from the well, all this radiating. The flower is a given.
The water is given. We are given. We are given over.

Prairie Schooner, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 145-146

Biography

a photo of Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis

Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, The Southern Review, and the A Face to Meet the Faces anthology. Her book, Intaglio, was the 2005 winner of the Wick Poetry Prize. She teaches at Columbus College of Art and Design.

Return To Table Of Contents