One Poem by Stephen A. Rozwenc

 

the sacred white elephant

charges up

the tousled green mountainside

with a tiny sliver

of Buddha relic bone

tightly clutched

in his trunk tip

 

his sole purpose

to collapse

and die on the sheerest cliff

to signify

where a temple should be built

 

from the millions of voices

in the world

crying out for peace

at the same time

Stephen A. Rozwenc is a widely published expat poet, who currently resides in Thailand. He is the first poet in the history of American literature to write and publish 90% of his work after the age of 65. He has published 7 collections of poetry. His published book collections are: The Fourth Turning, Grass Hill, Ekphrastic Nightingales, New England Fortune Cookies, Death Is Birth, Russia, Translations of Famous Russian Poets, Thai Diary, and Selected Poems.

More than 300 of his poems and translations have appeared individually in numerous poetry publications including: The Mailer Review, Buddhist Poetry Review, Blue Lake Review, Dm Du Jour, Equinox, Eunoia Review, Glass Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, New Pattaya Review, Philadelphia Poets, Poets Against War, Plum Tree Tavern, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The Plum Tree Tavern. His poetry and translations have been published internationally in Europe and Asia. He has been a past recipient of two Williamsburg Massachusetts Arts Council Grants for poetry. Two of his poems have been selected for inclusion in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal Anthology of best poems of 2021.