DigitalCommons@C.O.D.

Trestrail, Susan

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 17
Spring 5-1-2018
Pondering Jesus
Susan Trestrail
College of DuPage
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This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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Recommended Citation
Trestrail, Susan (2018) "Pondering Jesus," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 17.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/17
Prairie Light Review 20
“Sunday Afternoons”
Molly Miklosz
Colored Pencil 
Pondering Jesus
Sipping our coffee 
the priest and I,
while he ponders
Jesus, I, 
kindness.
“Aren’t they the same?”
I asked. He nods,
but I can see he is sleeping.
His sermon can wait. 
“All people?”
I wake him with my
question.
He, again, nods. 
“All people, but
there are rules, it seems.” 
I know not all people
are loved equally. 
Some,
make mistakes.
Some, 
born different. 
“We choose, how we live,”
he says. 
I and the father, 
sip coffee.
He ponders kindness,
I, Jesus.
-Susan Trestrail
1
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English

Pondering Jesus

Farley, Mary

ESSAI
Volume 16 Article 15
Spring 2018
The People, The Revolution
Mary Farley
College of DuPage
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Recommended Citation
Farley, Mary (2018) "The People, The Revolution," ESSAI: Vol. 16 , Article 15.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol16/iss1/15
30 
The People, the Revolution 
 
by Mary Farley 
 
(History 2225) 
 
 
 
he tenacity of the Russian working class and peasants is well documented in Albert Rhys 
Williams’ Through the Russian Revolution. It is an interesting factor in how the Revolution 
was won, considering how they faced not only the oppressive upper class but also other 
country’s intervention as well. A large portion of what was motivating the rebels was faith and not 
strictly in the religious sense. Of course a great many in Russia at the time were wholly devoted to 
the church, still celebrating certain holidays and feasts while the revolution raged on. However, the 
connection between church and state (as it existed under Czardom) could not continue with the 
revolution and faith was lost in the Provisional government that had risen. When both religion and 
the systems of power were failing them, the people of Russia turned their devotion to the idea of 
revolution itself, instead finding themselves idols to worship and abiding by their own morals. 
 Williams met with a great many people while journeying through Russia, one of whom was 
Ivan Ivanov of Spasskoye. Despite being kicked out of Spasskoye for his revolutionist ideas some 
years ago, Williams’ friend Yanishv takes them there and both are welcomed with open arms by Ivan 
and stay with him and his family. Before eating dinner, the whole family makes a point of 
performing the sign of the cross and they have a large feast. Williams finds out that they have arrived 
at the start of “The Feast of Transfiguration”1 which also entailed much singing and dancing. The 
celebration rolled over some to the next day, but the propriety of the people won out before long. 
Ivan led the families to the fields to harvest crops, the celebration over in the wake of the upcoming 
winter. While the revolution was intensifying around them, the people of Spasskoye maintained their 
religious and daily customs but their curiosity with Bolshevism was dying to be quenched. As 
Williams put it, “...more eager to gather stores for their mind than they had been to gather food for 
their bodies.”2  Despite hearing Yanishev speak about this subject with great passion (and a weary 
voice), few to none of the people were initially willing to convert. Their faith in the new system at 
hand was solid, enjoying their holidays and dutifully working in the fields. This would not last 
forever, though, as their acute focus on Yanishev’s speech hinted. 
 For the people of Spasskoye, their village would change to Bolshevism eight months after 
Yanishev returned to them. Around Russia, more working class people were changing their stance on 
where the government and religion met. Williams speaks with a Russian priest for some time, 
discovering that old prayers are being changed since God’s title as the “Czar of Heaven” is 
considered to be an insult to the ‘creator’. To relate an idol of the people to their greatest enemy has 
caused much distress for the church, though the old priest was not hopeless. He remarks that, “The 
Revolution has made havoc with the Faith, yet the masses of soldiers are still religious. Much can 
still be done in the name of the cross.”3  The transition of loyalty between the church and the 
Revolution was still in progress. The soldiers referenced by the priest were those fighting in a 
pointless war ordered by the Czar and continued by the Provisional government for the sake of 
 
 
  
1 Albert Rhys Williams, Through the Russian Revolution (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2016), 30. 
2 Ibid., 37. 
3 Ibid., 43. 
T
1
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31 
honoring treaties (and reaping the benefits of those treaties). For them, there was nowhere else to put 
faith in besides religion and a God they had known all their lives, who had not abused them as their 
Czar had. This would not last, as many fled the battlefield and returned home, ready to fight not 
against Germans but Kerensky and his government. By October, Williams notes that “Their last 
shred of faith in the government is gone. They have faith in themselves; faith that they alone can save 
Russia… faith alone in the institutions of their own making.”4  And what is the revolution but an 
institution of the people?  
 The people had, according to Williams, decided the Soviets were the best body to represent 
themselves. The Intelligentsia, who had once made a god out of the people, were quick to change 
their tune when Soviets were rising to power. Similar to how the people were rejecting god as the 
Czar of heaven, the Intelligentsia were abandoning the idea that a people could be a deity since they 
could not control such an entity. It was too late though, as Williams puts it, “Now the people were 
rising with the wrath and thunder of a god, imperious- and arbitrary.”5  When their faith was put in 
themselves and their fellow man, the people acted like a god and believed themselves one. This is not 
to say they acted as though they were above the laws of man; on the contrary, they began to self 
govern. While the Winter Palace was being stormed by men of the revolution from various different 
backgrounds and occupations, looting broke out. This could not stand, as the image of the Revolution 
could be hurt and used against them. One Bolshevik working man stood against three soldiers in 
Williams’ recount, reminding them that ‘“You are responsible to the Revolution,’...So deadly earnest 
is he that these men feel in him the authority of the Revolution. They hear and obey.”6  Not only are 
looters stopped in the process, but self-appointed men stand at the exits and search each person 
leaving the palace to ensure that no trophies leave. Without any police or commanding officer, the 
people protect the sacred image of the Revolution as they once had the shrines of saints in their 
homes.  
 It should be noted that Williams’ interpretation of these events does come with an ironic lens, 
being that Williams himself was once a minister. He was noted as being doubtful of his ties to the 
church on more than one occasion7 through his six years as a minister, yet greatly relays the 
Revolution in a faith-based sense. He describes the Revolution with religious terms, using such 
phrases as “All labor is holy.”8  Perhaps his experience with the poor and suffering people around 
Europe and Russia inspired him to take up the revolutionary faith as well. He certainly sounds devout 
to the cause when he defines the Revolution as “...the Messiah coming to ‘preach good tidings to the 
poor; to proclaim release of the captives and to set at liberty them that are bruised.’”9  This is not to 
say that the socialist country he supported meant he had to give up his religious ties. Rather, many of 
the morals and ideologies of the two overlap. This was not a man jumping ships to a completely 
different belief system, he was simply placing more importance on the physical world than the 
spiritual one. The great wave of those inspired by and for the Revolution was not unique to the 
Russian people, but included an American man like Williams who traded his devotion to God for 
devotion to the people. 
 In summation, the faith once held towards God and the Czar was a transferable power held 
by the people of Russia. When the Czar was finally overthrown after failing them for his entire reign, 
 
 
  
4 Ibid., 56. 
5 Ibid., 61. 
6 Ibid., 70. 
7 Ibid., xvi. 
8 Ibid., 73. 
9 Ibid., 133. 
2
ESSAI, Vol. 16 [2018], Art. 15
https://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol16/iss1/15
32 
they denied him a place in their lives and the church. As the Revolution continued, they celebrated 
their religious holidays while devouring Bolshevik ideology. When God did not save them from the 
battlefields of WWI, they abandoned both and came home, where they put their faith in themselves. 
The working class and peasants held the Revolution together through 1917 to 1921, self-governing 
when the image and outcome of the Revolution was at stake; managing to not only inspire each 
other, but foreigners such as the author himself, Albert Rhys Williams. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The People, The Revolution

Crawford, Ronda

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 44
Spring 5-1-2018
Almost Blue
Ronda Crawford
College of DuPage
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Recommended Citation
Crawford, Ronda (2018) "Almost Blue," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 44.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/44
Spring 201851
Almost Blue
 You should have deleted the number from your phone or at least 
changed the ringtone. The classic “Piano Riff,” a gift from the ghost of a 
lover past. You pick up anyway.
 “Yes,” you say proud of the casual tone.
 “Hey you.” It just hangs there, and you wait.
 “I just…how have you been?”
 “Good. Thanks for asking.” Absent of all sarcasm, no trace of bit-
terness or longing, you are proud of yourself, but it’s still early in the game.
 “I just bought a new leather jacket, and it has a made in India label.”
 “That’s funny.” You laugh despite yourself.
 “See I knew when I saw it that you would get it. I showed it to five 
different people and none of them knew why it was so funny. But I knew… 
how have you been?” And there it is, that familiar rhythm of words, his I’m-
being-sexy-without-trying candace.
 “We’ve already covered that and it’s been established that I am fine. 
So it’s time to ask another qualifying question or get to the point. Either is 
fine, but I’ve got somewhere to be today so…”
 Actually, you have nowhere to be; you are just creating an escape 
route, somewhere to run should he try any of his old Jedi mind tricks.
“I’m well. I’m over at McAlister’s after the acquisition, doing some indepen-
dent consulting under my own banner, but they are talking about making me 
partner--”
 You almost say you are happy for him, after all the long hours of 
corporate climbing. All the late nights and weekends. How he learned to 
play golf even though he swore he would never. You remember how he used 
to make fun of those guys, now he was one of them. Of course he wants to 
celebrate.
 “Don’t,” you say with more emotion than you intended.
 Damn him. In fifty words or less, he has you trying to figure out what 
Rube Goldberg set of circumstances caused his elation or displeasure.  Or 
don’t you remember sitting in this exact same place for days, weeks, months 
trying to recreate or avoid his perfect storms. Perhaps you could at least 
recall the exhausted feeling of trying to figure out why, settling instead to an-
“Warrior Princess”
Robin Liefeld
Colored Pencil
1
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Prairie Light Review 52
ticipate when, and how much it would hurt or feel good  this time. And then 
everything changed when it became a who, and how you never saw that one 
coming.
 “Don’t what?” The feigning wide eyed innocent routine.
 “Don’t try and act as if no time has passed, and that we are going 
to pick up as if we just talked yesterday. I’m not feeling nostalgic right now. 
So either tell me what you want or get off my phone.” You just pulled the 
trigger. Shots fired.
 “No need to be hostile. Fine. I…I just…I just wanted someone to tell 
a funny story too. I wanted to talk to someone who I knew got it. Got me. Is 
that so wrong?”
 He’s in his car, pulled over making the call before he goes home. You 
hear the soft hum of familiar traffic, but not of movement. There is a murmur 
of music, but you can’t make out the song, the volume is too low.
 “You didn’t want someone who got you. You had that, and it got 
old.”
 The words catch in the back of your throat leaving a taste in the 
mouth that only a really strong drink could wash away right now. Something 
bitter, with lots of ice, in a very tall glass, that would still burn a bit going 
down.
 “You have every right to still have feelings about the way things end-
ed. And I know it doesn’t mean much but I’m sorry. I was…I miss you. There I 
put it out there first.”
 You have nothing to say, you don’t even sigh, you just leave space for 
this long awkward silence.
 “Honestly I didn’t think you would answer. I had planned to leave a 
message about the leather jacket made in India. I thought it might be some-
thing that would make you smile. Something that might make you remember 
me fondly. Remember us.”
 As if on cue a soft focus montage of moments, good times, comes 
back to you. The two of you laughing at obscure inside jokes, of you two 
speaking your own intimate language, getting each other. And then as quick-
ly as it comes it flickers out, sputtering to darkness, fading to an image of 
you on the floor of your shower naked and crying in secret.
 “What do you want me to say. That I miss you too? Because if that’s 
it…” you say.
 And now is the moment you should hang up, but you don’t because 
you want to know where this is going. You want to know why he called. The 
answer is almost inaudible. But it sounds like...
2
The Prairie Light Review, Vol. 40, No. 2 [2018], Art. 44
https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/44
Spring 201853
 “Help me.”
 Please God, you think, anything but that. You have no witty come-
back or cutting barb prepared for this kind of vulnerability. You can’t confirm 
or deny its authenticity. You can pretend you didn’t hear him. That’s a safe 
thing, because pride won’t let him say it a second time.
 “What? I can barely hear you.”
 “Bed’s too big without you…” he sang in a dead-on Sting imperson-
ation only a little off key. “Cold wind blows right through that open door...I 
can’t sleep with your memory...Dreaming dreams of what used to be…”
 He would call you from the road when he was away on business, and 
before he would say a word he would sing, “Bed’s too big without you…” 
And you would talk for hours, because back then you were best friends. He 
was your world.
 “You know Sting wrote that about an ex-girlfriend who committed 
suicide after their break up right?”
 You let the irony of that sink in like the juice of fresh lemon in a paper 
cut. This time he’s the one laughing at your defensive moves against that 
dark charm.
 “I’m out in front of your building right now. Will you let me come up? 
I just want to talk.”
 And there he is, the Jedi master returns, a year late, but ready with 
new feats of skullduggery. How much of you does he need this time? Did you 
appear like a desert oasis in his memory, a place where he can replenish him-
self before he goes on his way. How long would it take before you are doing 
the slow slide down that shower wall?
 “What about the toddler?” And you smile, because he had hoped 
you would forget about her, at least until he could put his spin on the situa-
tion. I’m sure by now she didn’t understand him.
 “She’s well over twenty-one, I wish you wouldn’t…” His sigh defen-
sive and tinged with the slightest hint of defeat.
 “Go home,” you say.
 “She’s not you. Almost but not quite. And I do miss you...us. So 
much.” You can feel his powers failing him.
 “I know. Just go home.”
 And with that you touch the red phone emblem that disconnects the 
two of you. With another touch you delete the number and with it the classic 
“Piano Riff” ringtone. Your final touch blocks the caller.
-Ronda Crawford
3
Crawford: Almost Blue
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Almost Blue

Elliot, Sheila

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 52
Spring 5-1-2018
Finding a Poem
Sheila Elliot
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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Recommended Citation
Elliot, Sheila (2018) "Finding a Poem," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 52.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/52
Spring 201863
Finding a Poem
Listless sky, my walk, its
Impatient proclamation, is the
Stride of a searcher who
Has not yet found it--
A poem,
 The poem,
 Any poem
Today.
 
Poems--they hide, I hear, in
Plain sight, hang out
 Around the block,
Near the laundromat,
The shoe shop,
Near the place where engines
Are repaired, where wires
 Thin as eyelashes
Become Everyday Heroes
Everyday...
 
Poems lurk in the space beneath
The door jamb of every entrance
I have closed, go on to
Linger where what I cannot
Do without is kept until I know I must
Give what it was away.
 
Poems. They alight in trees in winter,
Leaves gone. Long moments of
Cold quiet, uncompromised stillness,
Their limbs nothing but emboldened lines
Dark as a Kabuki mask.
 Like anything
Alive, poems may bloom
Because they defy, are heard because
They are the tapping footsteps
In the silent journey of our hearts.
Poems stroll on through imagination’s wall,
And then they wander hallways in a
 Mall of Mistaken Meanings.
Poems thrive when overlooked,
Left alone
But a poem is always inside us,
Watching, like a drone.
---30---
-Sheila Elliot
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Elliot: Finding a Poem
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Finding a Poem

Kelley, Jennifer

Introduction - Jennifer Kelley

Rogers, Kenya

Kenya Rogers Reads  Phenomenal Woman  by Maya Angelou

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 6
Spring 5-1-2018
Table of Contents
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Prefatory Note is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for
inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
(2018) "Table of Contents," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 6.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/6
Prairie Light Review 6
        Table of
Honey
Slow Down
At River’s Edge
Miles to Go
Infared Storm
Dark World
Stars of New Mexico
Betrayal
Hawker on Jackson Boulevard
Arthur
When Time Moves On
Pondering Jesus
Face For Radio
Sunday Afternoons
The Woman
Golden Hour Star
Keep You In The Dark
Better Together
Morning Stillness
Morning Tea
Small Bites
Renovation
Self Portrait
He Was Powerless All Along
I Live in Music
What Did You Notice First?
The World Ends And I Began
The Noctuary
Seeing Through Your Eyes
Second Thoughts
Paid In Full
Déjà Rêvé
Sewing Drawer
The Last Days of the Loneliest Woman
Love Affair
Contents
Hannah Davis
Heather Anderson
Tania Blanco
Mardelle Fortier
Francis Keller
Mark Evans
Jon Ruffolo
Jenny Chen
Wilda Morris
John Grey
Alana Sadah
Susan Trestrail
Ronda Crawford
Molly Miklosz
Sophia Zezulak
Leslie Cortes
Matt McNichols
John Morello
Christine Cianciosi
Susan Trestrail
Eleanor Zilius
Sean Hurst
Susan Schubert
Heather Anderson
Mariah Vance
Alyssa Alhert
Alana Sadah
Tricia Marcella Cimera
Natalie McKenty
M.J. Bressler
John J. Gordon
Lexi Ortlieb
Molly Miklosz
John Grey
M.J. Bressler
Cover
8
9
10
12
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
21
22
23
24
25
28
28
29
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
40
42
43
44
45
46
1
et al.: Table of Contents
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Spring 20187
After the Accident
Forest Art
Warrior Princess
Almost Blue
Birth of a Star
Birth Father
Storms Over the Prairie
Sadly, I Understand
Los Angeles Forest Fire
When Things Fall Apart, Can We Keep Going?
Self Portrait 2018
Finding a Poem
Dead Tree
Karen Forslin-Bojnansky
Christine Cianciosi
Robin Liefeld
Ronda Crawford
Tania Blanco
Wilda Morris
Francis Keller
Gabriel Guzman
Jon Ruffolo
Julie P. Center
Hannah Davis
Sheila Elliott
Francis Keller
47
48
50
51
54
55
56
58
58
59
62
63
Back 
Cover
2
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Keller, Francis

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 10
Spring 5-1-2018
Infared Storm
Francis Keller
College of DuPage
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Recommended Citation
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Infared Storm

Sadah, Alana

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 32
Spring 5-1-2018
The World Ends And I Began
Alana Sadah
College of DuPage
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Recommended Citation
Sadah, Alana (2018) "The World Ends And I Began," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 32.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/32
Prairie Light Review 36 1
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The World Ends And I Began

Blanco, Tania

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 40 | Number 2 Article 45
Spring 5-1-2018
Birth of a Star
Tania Blanco
College of DuPage
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Recommended Citation
Blanco, Tania (2018) "Birth of a Star," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 40 : No. 2 , Article 45.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol40/iss2/45
Prairie Light Review 54
“Birth of  a Star”
Tania Blanco
Acrylic on Canvas
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College of DuPage

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Pondering Jesus

The People, The Revolution

Almost Blue

Finding a Poem

Introduction - Jennifer Kelley

Kenya Rogers Reads Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Table of Contents

Infared Storm

The World Ends And I Began

Birth of a Star

7,467

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