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The Sunrise Liturgy: A Poem Sequence
The Sunrise Liturgy: A Poem Sequence
The Sunrise Liturgy: A Poem Sequence
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The Sunrise Liturgy: A Poem Sequence

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Committing theology to poetry is not new, but it's not wildly common. The Sunrise Liturgy aims to do just that. It is a sequence, like liturgy, with a start and a procession and a finish. The sun does the processing, and the play on sun and Son is never far from sight. Sunrise gives the cantus firmus to this theological theme and variations, where the going is by turns easy, by turns thickly polyphonic--take a deep breath! The cantus firmus shifts from voice to voice, disappearing, towards year's end, beyond the audible range of human mortals. But there are other mortals in this procession of the year, "acolytes of the Holy Impotence," and under and beside and through it all flows the St. Lawrence River, le fleuve, winding across the page, a tidal presence at once natural and mystical. As are the snow geese. As is the heron. There is an attempt to wrestle with a credible theodicy, especially environmental. There is a profound penchant for the eremitic, with nods to The Cloud of Unknowing and Gregory of Nyssa. And always there is the priestly sense of "performance," enactment, and Eucharist, for this is a priest speaking.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 21, 2012
ISBN9781498270557
The Sunrise Liturgy: A Poem Sequence
Author

Mia Anderson

Mia Anderson is author of six books of poetry, including The Sunrise Liturgy (2012) and Light Takes (2014), which contains the 2013 Montreal International Poetry Prize-winning poem "The Antenna." A retired theatre actor, Anglican priest, and shepherd, she's also a committed organic grower--and still married.

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    The Sunrise Liturgy - Mia Anderson

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    The Sunrise Liturgy

    A Poem Sequence

    Mia Anderson

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    The Sunrise Liturgy

    A Poem Sequence

    Copyright © 2012 Mia Anderson. 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.

    Wipf & Stock

    An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

    199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

    Eugene, OR 97401

    www.wipfandstock.com

    ISBN 13: 978-1-62032-016-7

    EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7055-7

    Manufactured in the U.S.A.

    Cover Photo © Mia Anderson.

    for Tom, twin, always

    and for Rowan

    Caveat lector

    Over and over.

    You have entered this life?

    Be warned.

    Over and over the sun.

    You grew up perhaps

    with the cow [jumped]

    over the moon.

    This is different. Here you will find

    the sunrise liturgy.

    Here you will find things repeating themselves.

    Even first times repeat themselves

    as first times.

    You think all this

    iterating iteration is a version of

    hell? It is heaven

    for those for whom it is heaven.

    Things don’t come clearer.

    We are two species

    the hell species and the heaven species.

    I don’t say we can’t inhabit both.

    We have dual citizenship.

    I just wanted to warn you.

    This is the sunrise liturgy and mostly it is heaven.

    This is for those for whom it is heaven.

    Readable but not read

    Dayspring : you before

    at spring of day, at first

    jump of sun using the horizon as a spring-board.

    Or the spring-board itself.

    Or an invite to a Jump-Up.

    Or day’s season of beginnings — daily freshening source

    of wave or particle.

    ‘The night has passed and the day lies open before us….’

    Start of every morning. Day like a book flat on its spine

    pages to left of you pages to right

    wide

    open

    readable but not read.

    A slice of horizon with a lid of sky on a plate of water

    le fleuve, ever-moving, flowing towards

    the read pages, away

    from the unread

    ever-passing, time’s model.

    Your eye, reading. Horizon a blink

    the far shore the eye-lid with its lashes, the near shore the lower lashes

    you the pupil in the middle

    at your paedeia, scanning, duty at its delight the Other Book before, learner

    with your beginner’s licence, blink, and the colour has changed

    like a carousel of old-fashioned slides, blink, and the flame

    has gone rose, the rose peach, the peach

    gold, the gold ivory and luminous cream, and then

    Brother Sun has sprung

    pop-up jack-in-the-biodegradable-box of night

    coming up from down-under

    gasping for air as he clears the watery fleuve.

    The people that walked in darkness, or stumbled from bed to bath or

    wandered sleepless groping for texts like capsules

    have seen a great light, Brother Sun leaping like a Lord

    the sun of righteousness arising

    my! — but

    that Charles Wesley could sing!

    ‘Christ, whose glory fills the skies’ can you hear the tune?

    ‘Dayspring

    from on high, be near;/ Day-star,

    in my heart appear.’

    Almost 200 years of it flowing by

    no one dipping in the same tune twice

    the same always anew.

    Like the light.

    Liturgy : the solemn procession

    of numinous vapour off the fleuve festooning the minus 35 degrees

    as it glides downstream

    an armada dedicated to self-annihilation

    in the Sol Glorianus :

    Christ whose glory fills the skies, Light from Light.

    Dayspring : the time of first take on ‘the fair glory’

    linking the light within with the light without.

    The people who walked without light

    have seen a great light.

    And eaten it

    with their eyes.

    Day within.

    How dawn

    Look. Look. You see?

    — how dawn

    like a benign flesh-eating disease

    invades the shrinking dark,

    devours.

    The dark shrinks, cowers

    behind small objects,

    huddles, hurls itself

    away from tall trees, the lawn’s

    a line-up of escapees.

    It does no good.

    Like Mr Todd.

    The sun will trump you every time, Mr

    Wind-Who-Would blow Todd’s coat off.

    It doesn’t work that way.

    Sun beams, it beams.

    Dawn. Coats off.

    And the dark is gone.

    There. See?

    Think when it began, when you

    could not be sure whether

    light had begun or your dream continued.

    The benign infection advanced cell by cell

    into the body of night, till you could not tell

    if you could see

    or you could not see.

    But you could.

    The infarction of love.

    Poor dark night. It happens every time.

    Mixed message

    Half past dawn for us mixed mortals

    and the frozen birch tree is doing as good a job

    of feeding the grosbeaks as the frozen apple tree.

    When they swirl away from their délices de sorbet aux pommes

    (McSorbet) in the winter sun

    they head for the top of the birch and snack on its catkins.

    Of the five, two

    have red breasts, sharply V-shaped sharp red and

    they are pecking themselves, those two,

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