Habitation of Wonder. Abigail Carroll

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      Habitation Of Wonder

      The Poiema Poetry Series

      Copyright © 2018 Abigail Carroll. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3025-5

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3027-9

      ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3026-2

      Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      Names: Carroll, Abigail

      Title: Habitation of wonder / Abigail Carroll.

      Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018 | Series: The Poiema Poetry Series.

      Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-3025-5 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-3027-9 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-3026-2 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: subject | subject | subject | subject

      Classification: call number 2018 (paperback) | call number (ebook)

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. 01/29/18

      The Poiema Poetry Series

      Poems are windows into worlds; windows into beauty, goodness, and truth; windows into understandings that won’t twist themselves into tidy dogmatic statements; windows into experiences. We can do more than merely peer into such windows; with a little effort we can fling open the casements, and leap over the sills into the heart of these worlds. We are also led into familiar places of hurt, confusion, and disappointment, but we arrive in the poet’s company. Poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, seeking together to gain something of value—to get at something important.

      Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship . . .” poiema in Greek—the thing that has been made, the masterpiece, the poem. The Poiema Poetry Series presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously, and demonstrate in whose image we have been made through their creativity and craftsmanship.

      These poets are recent participants in the ancient tradition of David, Asaph, Isaiah, and John the Revelator. The thread can be followed through the centuries—through the diverse poetic visions of Dante, Bernard of Clairvaux, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, R. S. Thomas, and Denise Levertov—down to the poet whose work is in your hand. With the selection of this volume you are entering this enduring tradition, and as a reader contributing to it.

      —D.S. Martin

      Series Editor

      To my parents, who taught me wonder.

      Genesis (I)

      We read the Word

      spoke forth creation, but

      I’m not so sure it wasn’t

      sung into being,

      not exactly hummed,

      though insects might

      have appeared with hardly

      an opening of the mouth.

      No doubt, the sun

      was spun from delicate,

      yet forceful arias—thus

      the operatic nature of light.

      Out of a bass-line, deep

      blue tones—the kind you

      rarely hear until they’ve

      faded into air—whales.

      Ostriches sprang from

      strange improvisations.

      Elephants are echoes

      of ancient, sacred chants.

      I imagine larkspur, phlox,

      and clover are the progeny

      of nursery rhymes repeated

      quaintly, readily, musingly,

      as if sheer gratuity

      were their purpose, as if

      they were made for nothing

      more than loveliness. Stars,

      in their totality, emerged

      not from a tune, but rather

      a soft and knowing sound:

      a buzz, a kind of celestial

      purr, a note so perfectly

      content with itself that

      it sparked, became what

      it dreamed: a universe.

      Canticle (I)

      To agree with the lake.

      To sing and let sing

      bristle grass, a white sail,

      beach stones

      mottling the shore

      in music older

      than the human ear.

      To be tutored

      by a bent reed,

      the smooth back

      of driftwood

      listing, concurring.

      To let nouns be nouns

      the way the mountains

      inhabit the grammar

      of СКАЧАТЬ