Setting the Waves on Fire
for a virtual book release!
Press Release
Virtual Launch Scheduled for Wichita Author’s Debut Book of Poetry
Emporia, KS - Setting the Waves on Fire, by Arlice W. Davenport, is the newest book of poetry released by Meadowlark Press. The book retails for $15 and is now available to order. The launch event will take place via Zoom on October 14 at 7:00pm. Attendees are invited to sign up at www.meadowlark-books.com.
Of Davenport’s poetry collection, Roy Beckemeyer, Kansas Authors Club multi-year Poet of the Year, writes, “This is poetry of intellectual breadth built on a foundation of honest emotional depth. I encourage you to take up this book and read, to follow Davenport’s best advice: “Your heart is bruised, bleeding / drops of unrequited love. / The viscera of your body / tighten like a noose. You could slide // your head into it, if you choose, / . . . Love flees / like a deer bounding in a forest. / You are too broken to give chase . . . /. . . Let poems be your new heart. // It will not bleed.”
Davenport, a lifelong Wichitan, is the retired Travel editor and Books Page editor for The Wichita Eagle.
Setting the Waves on Fire (ISBN 978-1734247770) is available to order from the Meadowlark Books web-store at www.meadowlark-books.com, and for order through all online and traditional book outlets.
____________________________________________
Nearing the End
First, give all your money to the poor.
Then gather your other possessions
and burn them, breathing a prayer
of contentment as smoke spirals
to the heavens.
Write farewell notes to all your
dearest friends and nearest relatives.
Keep the notes clear and concise—
no euphemisms for death and dying.
No saccharine clinging to the world.
Find a reputable carpenter to build
a simple coffin—most likely
a plain pine box. Meditate on your coffin
for days, imagine yourself laid inside it
with no way out. It will be your temporary
home. Keep it sparse and Spartan.
Look beyond it to the void.
Ritually bathe your body—the last thing
you own—cleansing it of sin and regret.
Repent. Rejoice. Reunite with your Source.
Bask in the glow of requited love.
In the sand, write with your finger a haiku.
Make it jump like a frog into a pond of
lilies. Make it land on your heart
with ever the lightest touch.
Pray for grace to board your passage.
Only the living guess at its true nature,
unknowing on this side of the grave.
Read the Phaedo by Plato. There, Socrates says,
death is either a deep eternal sleep or
a reunion with other departed souls.
You do not have to choose. The reality
will come straight to you like a messenger
from afar. Be open to its meaning.
Finally, step into your coffin, fix the lid, and sleep.
When you wake, you will be on the other
side of dreams. Do not look back. You will
have entered the domain of the dead.
Make it your new abode. Clamber toward the light.
__________
No comments:
Post a Comment