In this month’s collection, three powerful voices, Carol Ostrow, Madlyn Epstein Steinhart, and Nicole Freezer Rubens, explore the quiet, complicated ways we keep moving through love, loss, boundaries, and national grief. Each poem stands alone in its truth, yet together they form a chorus of resilience — reminding us that even when life cracks us open, something steady inside keeps urging us forward.

Life Goes On

I’m exhausted with emotional upheaval,
Not earthshaking or anything evil,
Just the end of a beautiful connection,
That took away my breath and attention,

Being in love can be all consuming,
Dreaming of a life and assuming,
That all is meant to be,
That he was certainly meant for me,

Then, decisions are made to be together,
You realize that you are not forever,

That you are different, completely separate.

And you must sever the relationship, the end,
It is a decision that you cannot bend,
My heart is torn in little pieces,
My eyes have reddened with ever more creases,

I will have delicious memories as I age,
It’s so important to turn the page.

~Carol Ostrow, author “Poems from My Pandemic Pen” and “Poetry in Motion with Much Emotion”

Listen carefully

Life will not always go as planned
Not sure why
You won’t get your way
Plans change
Some just have to their way despite and inspite of you
Your buttons get pushed so much that you have to raise those boundaries or reset them
Sometimes at least for me being a loner not a joiner is easier
It might not be good for you
Listen carefully

~Madlyn Epstein Steinhart, author of “Beautiful Heart” and “Put Your Boots on and Dance in the Rain”

No One Left Behind

After brothers and sisters
around the world
tore off their hostage tags
and untied their yellow ribbons,
they exhaled from their guts,
and then turned their calendars
to October 8th.
The earth was ready
to be opened up again.
By burying Ran Gvili,
the very last of 251 seeds,
returning his shrouded remains
to its homeland of ashes and dust,
Ran the soldier
continued to serve his people.
Every shovelful of dirt
broke the rule of
a favor that cannot be returned.
It allowed Ran to continue to give back.
Planting his plain pine box
deep in the soil
of Southern Israel,
planted the fertilizer needed
to blossom, to rebuild
and to truly begin healing
our battered but buoyant nation.
His eternal gift is
the renewal of body,
the renewal of spirit,
and let us say Amen.

~Nicole Freezer Rubens, author of “The Long Pause and the Short Breath”