Affordable Wonders
by
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ASCENSIONTIDE A pair of fashionably too-large sneakers sits empty in the lamplight on our lawn. Practising round-the-compass jumps from standing start, Orlando has just twirled himself right out of his shoes He's reeling off into the shadows and there they sit, empty in the evening lamplight, managing to look both bereft and poised For the split of a second as laughter ambushes me, I intuit ascension: divinity (God must be twelve if she's a day) leaping—an ecstasy of energy— right out of its incarnate sneakers And coming back down, of course, there being the matter of gravity's tax on all ascents But do not, Goddess, assess his, or any child's, jumps at too steep a rate Let them descend the stairs of their young mornings with no black hole of hunger sucking that divinity, that rapturous twirl of energy Let them fall back in their shoes of body with no landmines chewing on their tibias Let them breathe inalienable welcome as in and out as ordinary air RESOLUTION New Year 2008. Whereas: like happiness miracles have this trick of revealing them- selves after the event Resolved: this Lent I will abstain from disenchantment, world weariness, all customary cynicisms and remembering that garden confluence of miracle—quizzical grackle white peonies Imogen running I will assemble an enchantment- prone brownbag lunch, lay a spell of grace on it and climb into this shiny loan of hours hoping, no, expecting to glimpse a miracle, maybe even two in the rear view mirror of my day SMALL SISTER Beijing 1930 - Jinan 1936 A race's memory of loss moves in my father's face keening its way into a hymn My mother heavy, pressed to the shape of Eve's astonishment at death Both dry, unable yet to taste the gift of tears from friends Myself the boy afraid, almost, to breathe that air so dense with desolation, watches their look not focussed yet into belief, eyes still round with the deceit of it: Death dressed informally in a sore throat dropped round and took her so politely, so without the usual oratory of dissolution So smooth a theft such an easy getaway Two Chinese gravediggers patient with foreign rituals wait to spread his same old soiled blanket this time on Merle's fragile cooling bones then leave us, resurrection far away, to hear what comfortable words we may
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About the Book
Ian Sowton believes that poetry is good for you, that a poem a day keeps indifference away. As a famous line in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman puts it, “attention must be paid” and poetry is one of the most finely honed human instruments for paying attention. Affordable Wonders pays attention to places both exotic and ordinary; to characters like Mercy Jones you might just happen to meet; to politics, paintings, and the city of Toronto; to birds—from juncos to pelicans; to verses from the Christian scriptures; to the memory of friends who have died; to the cultivation of imagination, and to language itself. The author hopes that Affordable Wonders will pleasingly exercise your imagination and your powers of noticing. Along with its variety of verse forms, this collection of poems offers a range of moods and voices from celebratory to elegiac, from satirical to devotional, and from whimsical to exasperation. Enter the text and explore, there are multiple points of view; its only agenda is to entertain bracingly.
About the Author
Ian Sowton has taught poetry for many years, particularly contemporary poetry and poems from the Renaissance period with a focus on poetry written by women. He has published two previous books of his own poetry, Intricate Armada (2005) and Imagining Sisyphus Happy (2006). Ian lives with his partner, Fran, a painter, in Toronto, Canada.