Anniversary Remembrance for E. and J. | Jennifer Phillips

Read by Lucy Kelly

What is The Alembic?

We’re thrilled to introduce you to a brand-new chapter in The Alembic’s history. For the first time ever, we’re offering an audio edition of the journal—an exciting new endeavor for 2025. In this edition, you’ll hear every written piece read aloud by Providence College students, bringing a new dimension and life to the written word.

Your joy was the covenant sun makes with morning
to always be there, scented with honey and rosemary.
Your joy was the white oak on the side of the hill
leaning into a seventh generation, canopy and roots
comprising one cosmic sphere, the golden mean.
Your joy was fresh-pressed oil by the stove and salt on the table
under Saint Euphrosynos with his breath of wild roses.
It rose up and walked through the sudden dark
following limed threads between the stones,
to a harbor throwing back the moon,
its arms out, mountained.
It kept measuring, piecing the colors,
edge needled to edge,
north wind swinging to the west,
a shelter portable, with its devoted angles laid to rights.
It was the woody trunk of the sage-shrub
by the open door and the blue-shuttered window,
ragged, grown split and brittle, but persistent in its wholeness,
casting its last shoot
up from close to the bone, close to the soil.