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    You Are Meant to Be Like Fire
    You Are Meant to Be Like Fire
    You Are Meant to Be Like Fire
    Ebook112 pages31 minutes

    You Are Meant to Be Like Fire

    By Sheila Murray-Nellis

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    About this ebook

    These poems explore how we communicate or fail to communicate with each other, with the natural world, and ultimately with the Divine. Poems of longing, of delight, and of loss reflect on how our relationship with nature mirrors our connection or lack of connection with God.

    "'When the Wheel Turns' explores a useful balance between the abstruse and the concrete by moving from gestures of philosophy and revolutionary context to more immediate and 'down to earth' references . . . the puss of war to the peels of beets, the torn planet a sheet of paper, and so forth. This is a very successful and accessible poem." (Fred Wah in his judge's comments on the poem "When the Wheel Turns," the first prize winner in the Kootenay Literary Competition in 2012.)

    Print book is 102 pages.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEva Nova Press
    Release dateOct 17, 2017
    ISBN9780995194137
    You Are Meant to Be Like Fire

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      Book preview

      You Are Meant to Be Like Fire - Sheila Murray-Nellis

      The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.

      St John of Damascus

      ––––––––

      Beauty will save the world.

      The Idiot by F. Dostoevsky

      Harrington, Quebec: Slicing Silence

      Ripples

      I stand, washing dishes and feeling the years

      gurgling as they circumnavigate the drain;

      the present gapes from the center, noisily sucks up my life.

      ––––––––

      Outside, behind a screen of saplings,

      a deer walks gingerly at the edge of the wood,

      stops, and sniffs the air;

      ––––––––

      a black crow perches on the branch of a tree

      whose crabapples glisten like rubies; he calls

      to his cronies who, fluttering black, cluster among the limbs.

      ––––––––

      And I am here.

      I fling open the door, traipse through the dewy grass,

      my socks wet and a damp wind slipping beneath my collar.

      ––––––––

      Why do I stay? It has to do with the way

      weather comes in waves: first, sunlight bathes the hills

      like laughter, the autumn trees shine golden light,

      ––––––––

      and the dew on the grass sparkles; then purple clouds

      glide across the sky sprinkling rain. Minutes later,

      hail patters the ground and there are a few wet flakes of snow.

      ––––––––

      Suddenly the clouds are gone, the sky is blue,

      but you can see the hail still slashing the valley

      and the rippling of the storm over the landscape.

      There’s a Purple About November

      It’s in the barks of trees, the slabs of granite

      hugging the road, and the underbelly of clouds,

      a swirling purple that melts into burnt sienna.

      ––––––––

      October’s orange and yellow and scarlet

      have slipped off

      and the empty branches blush

      ––––––––

      curving with a November shiver;

      sumac berries, once scarlet,

      now whither into burgundy and brown.

      ––––––––

      Soon purple enters my bones

      and lodges in my memory,

      a purple like the river’s curves

      ––––––––

      that turns my mind side to side,

      an ambling beast making for home,

      the purple of silence and sadness

      ––––––––

      and a tormenting thirst.

      There’s a longing about November,

      a yearning towards mystery;

      ––––––––

      it comes with the honking of geese

      and the bite of a cold breeze,

      the desire to be alone, yet not alone,

      a longing for home.

      On This Crisp Morning

      Frost ices the shadows

      by the aspen’s feet,

      ––––––––

      dew spits on the grass

      while sunlight keeps

      ––––––––

      pouring, pouring

      from a pitcher of blue.

      Lumberjack Transformed

      All that winter you slogged through hip-deep snow

      with your chainsaw, shovel, half a dozen

      peanut butter sandwiches and wearing

      ––––––––

      a yellow hard hat, plaid jacket, steel toe

      boots, and padded pants. You’d come home again

      after dark, aching muscles and smelling

      ––––––––

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