Winner of the 2020 Paraclete Poetry Prize, Litany of Flights is a
luminous examination of the journey of the soul, from moments of
loss to moments of incandescent transformation. These poems remind
us to behold the extraordinary in the ordinary, and that the secret
workings of the divine occur even through the difficult: "the
painful paring of your hollow bones has made you light." Drawing on
the beauty of the natural world, the devastating effects of drought
and wildfires, tender moments of daily experience, and lessons of
the saints, the poet creates a landscape of light and darkness,
with unexpected turns into divine presence and absence. Through a
spiral of red-tailed hawks, the nest of a mourning dove, the
parting of waters, and the ripeness of a persimmon, this shimmering
collection invites the reader to singular and transfiguring flight.
Litany of Flights (from the forthcoming collection) First, the
winged movement, steady, forward. Scrub jays in flitting progress,
hawks in predator glide, a ringing up, a knife-sharp slope down.
Second, the effortless type, wind-splayed, motionless pinions in
thermal recline, as the Psalmist says, blessings breeze his love
even in sleep. Third, the hungry, against the gale, the destination
singular and the sun dipping crimson. Fourth, the metallic,
business or pleasure. Fifth, the whirring kind, all hummingbird. A
picnic, apples and chocolate in the garden with roses, both flower
and child. You miss it when it's gone. Sixth, a baffling flight of
stairs, winding upward, passage and yet vehicle, spiraling to
unseen landings-hope courses in the kaleidoscopic lights. Seventh,
soar to the sun. Eighth, melt in bitter hubris. You know the story.
Ninth, escape. A flight out of Egypt, a path through the sea
cleared by divine hand. The times you ran, the times you were left
behind in lament. Tenth, only rotting in the belly of a whale tames
your stubborn turn from Nineveh. Eleventh, flights of despair and
of yearning, two sides of one letting go, hard-earned release back
into the wild, unbound by expectation, featherlike. Twelfth, in a
moment, caught up high by the Beloved, the one making all things
work together, wings, body, arch, air-caught up, like the Shulamite
bride, to regions beyond aeronautical wisdom, transported in joy.
See, he says, the painful paring of your hollow bones has made you
light.
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