Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back poet and visual artist Rebecca Oxford with two perceptive poems blazing with creative intuition. It is audacious to heed the voice that pulls us away from the crowd and fiercely rewarding to tend the inner fire that keeps us alive and full of wonder.
“Asphalt and Diamond Dust” takes us back to childhood, when slipping into daydreams was easy, even if we knew there were monsters. Rebecca recalls the smell and texture of asphalt on her walk to school, an image both evocative and mysterious. What she withholds is as telling as what she reveals: her trudging step hints at a stultifying school day and a reference to her father being drunk on Saturday night, throws an unsure shadow over the mood. And yet something fine shimmers, calling her, and us, toward the magic behind the ordinary. In her hands, that childhood road becomes a metaphor for a lifetime’s journey.
“In the black asphalt,/ Grit glistened like /Pinpoints of diamond dust.”
“With Rumi” pays tribute to Jalal al‑Din Rumi (1207–1276), the beloved Persian poet and spiritual teacher, and explores his audacious invitation to live on our own terms—to dance even when broken and bloodied, and to be drunk with love.
“Moving into the sunshine,/ Rumi and I share its brightness,/ And I trade my cloak of fear for gratitude.// I can’t recall those old tales/ That once shook their blades at me /And threatened to behead me.// Rumi says to break down /My barriers, leave time’s circle,/ And enter the circle of love.”
There is a tender ferocity in Rebecca’s voice, a vulnerability that refuses to be extinguished, even in the face of life’s brutality. In this poem she distilsl the enchantment of being alive–warm with sunlight yet edged with the knowledge of how easily we are wounded. It is this reverence for the numinous and the mortal, this willingness to cradle both the wound and the blessing, that gives her work its radiant power. As Rumi tells us, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Read Rebecca’s powerful poetry in Synkroniciti’s Audacity issue, Vol. 8, No. 1, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
At age 78, the age when Grandma Moses first sold a painting, Rebecca Oxford is fully embracing her artist-and-poet identity. In 2025 she showed her artwork in juried exhibitions (two in Alabama, two in Texas) and has now created her first poetry chapbook. As a university professor, she presented invited conference plenaries in 43 countries. Her 15 books concern spirituality, language learning, psychology, and peacebuilding. She jointly initiated and led three book series: Tapestry ESL Program (Heinle/Thompson); Spirituality, Religion, and Education (Palgrave MacMillan); and Transforming Education for the Future (Emerald Publishing UK).
A polio survivor, she agrees that life-threatening illness is a “soul journey” (Jean Shinoda Bolen, 1996). Rebecca and her husband share two long-haired cats, Steely Dan and Robert.