Galaxia
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Chapter II: The Ancient Tomes Parigon, relic-bearer, unbound his tomes— Once cradled in Cathedral Catacombs— Inspected they with inner faculties— Manuscript’s Leaves, craft with intricacy— Depictions of varied plants' anatomies— Countless functions—recipes & strategies— "What can you tell us of the scripts' 'pictions?" They asked. "'Tis a book—of prescriptions— Solutions—of sorts—to problems at hand— Revealing methods of curing our lands— With silken passages writ by mages— Golden pages of Byzantium’s Ages...” & soon—Telepathic marvels exploded— As these visions, eras-old, unfolded... Glimpsing long-forgotten ceremonies— Medicinal plants offered rhythmically— Fumigants & censer’s incantations— Cauldrons of infernal fermentations— Aztec warriors crafting vegetable moats— Chinampa fields amidst the seas, bronze-soaked... Taoist monks tending temples' Sage, Forsythia— Babylon’s isles nourishing Gardenia— Çatalhöyük enshrining countless plant-priests— Sacred grapevines crushed in Dionysian feasts— Vast empires top Machu Picchu's Green crest— Incan herbsmen dig rainfall-terraced steppes— Minoan Medicine Men perfect their art— As ancient shrines rare let secrets impart...
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About the Book
Galaxia begins conceptually where Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series ends. (“Will we have time to form Galaxia?”) Confronted with the task of expanding the last garden on a future war-ravaged Earth, Kreon and his tribe receive assistance in the form of silent, underground allies: the mycelial (mushroom) kingdom. They soon discover these organisms are more than simply catalysts of plant-life, but also trans-galactic portals of intelligence. Composed with poetic style combining the visionary inspirations and wordplays of William Blake, Emily Dickinson & James Joyce, Galaxia is a modern odyssey of ecology, mycology, history and art on a mass-historic scale...a futuristic, yet classical-in style poem venturing forth from science into transcendental science fiction as the mushroom’s ability to convey a universal connection with all plants, life and the universe steadily builds, culminating with a double-helix-shaped sonnet sequence that reflects the symbiotic evolutionary leap we face now. Onwards... to Galaxia!
About the Author
Alex Andor Skanavis is a Wisconsin-based poet heavily inspired by twentieth-century naturalist philosophers Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg, whose words became an ideal medium for imparting the exuberance of nature and ecology. Finding that the Divine Comedy Trilogy by Italian poet Dante could use an update as a naturalism manifesto (using the fluctuating conditions of Earth’s ecology as the analogy for heaven and hell), he completed his first book Gaia in 2012, now succeeded by the heavenly realms of Galaxia. Alex graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with an English degree for creative writing in 2013.