This collection includes 36 poems and 12 ""incantations"" that focus on the intertwined spiritual concepts of Light and Love. The poems, initially written within the Catholic mystical tradition of contemplation and adoration of the Divine presence, gradually evolved to encompass a broader scope of spiritual insights, without losing the main focus: reaching out in Love to the One Light, the Source of All. The simple and repetitive meditations and incantations are meant to inspire, uplift, and fill the heart with Light and Love. Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., is a Polish American poet, music...

OThe Rainy Bread: Poems of ExileO includes 30 poems about forgotten stories of Poles living in the Eastern Borderlands of Kresy, who were killed, deported, imprisoned, or oppressed after the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939. Some of these brief portraits capture the trauma and resilience, ordeals and miraculous survival stories of the authorOs immediate family. Their experiences of displacement, hunger, cold, and poverty during the war are typical of Polish civilians. These fictionalized memories are coupled with depictions of survival of other Poles deported to...