Under shattered skies, 
above fields tracked and trampled, 
a white dove flies, 

searches for hope among 
the debris and traps of war—

fields full of mines, 
missiles streaking, striking, 
broken bodies—

looks for a spot to start 
making a nest where peace, 

sunflowers can bloom again. 		

—After For the Innocents by Deborah J. Ripley

For the Innocents (stained glass, 2023)

Copyrighted © by Deborah J. Ripley. All rights reserved.
Reproduced here with permission from the artist.

Deborah J. Ripley

began her professional career in 1996 as a Community Health Educator and a Certified Professional Life Coach. In 1998, she was awarded a Master of Science degree in Human Service Administration. Early in her career, she began using art as a tool to educate individuals on how to create health and wellness in their lives. She worked at hospitals and clinics throughout Rhode Island and Maine presenting workshops.

Even though Deb has been interested in stained glass since childhood, she was sixty years old before she began to create stained-glass artworks herself. Since 2021, she has been a member of the Lemont Block Collective for artists in Brunswick, Maine.

Gary S. Rosin

is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review, Sulphur River, Texas Poetry Calendar; The Ekphrastic Review; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). His poems “Black Dogs” and “Viewing the Dead” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014).

See also Black Dogs here in MacQ (Issue 12, March 2022), which was nominated in October 2022 by MacQ for the 48th annual Pushcart Prize (2024 edition).