Where the Sky Opens: A Partial Cosmography

By Laurie Klein

Killer gales and orcas, slickrock and storm toads, blackbirds, junipers, bathroom lizards--terrifying beauty infuses these poems as they probe and praise the tidal rhythms of love and faith, long-term. Meet Dreamer and Bean: reveling in God, each other, and Creation. Belief falls away for one of them like the self-pruning limb of a cottonwood tree. Marooned in the slash, the pair must trailblaze common ground. A lyrical field guide for journey mates, this collection explores perilous terrain for body and soul, and the price of a promise, over time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Dec 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781498230919

Laurie Klein

Laurie Brendemuehl Klein is the author of the prize-winning chapbook Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh and the classic praise chorus "I Love You, Lord." Her poems and prose have appeared in many publications, including Ascent, The Southern Review, Atlanta Review, Terrain, and the Holman Personal Worship Bible. She is a recipient of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred. Connect with her on Facebook and at www.lauriekleinscribe.com.

Book preview

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Where the Sky Opens

A Partial Cosmography

LAURIE KLEIN

1937.png

WHERE THE SKY OPENS

A Partial Cosmography

The Poiema Poetry Series

Copyright ©

2015

Laurie Klein. 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.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

, Eugene, OR

97401

.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

ISBN

13

:

978

-

1

-

4982

-

3090

-

2

EISBN

13

:

978-1-4982-3091-9

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Laurie Klein.

Where the sky opens : a partial cosmography / Laurie Klein.

xiv +

82

p.;

23

cm

The Poiema Poetry Series

ISBN

13

:

978

-

1

-

4982

-

3090

-

2

1

. American Poetry—21st Century I. Title II. Series

PS3746.K312 2014

Manufactured in the USA.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

How to Live Like a Backyard Psalmist

I. Portals

A Lone Bird, Balanced

Exposed

She Can Only Try to Compose Herself

She Calls Him Dreamer

Next Breath, Best Breath

Blue as Devotion

Jealous

Warning

Darkness Muscles between Us

De Profundis

Tethers

Crash

Burial at Sea

II. Rhapsodies and Blues

Instrumental

Right Brain Blues

Ghost Stroke

Unbelief

Path Minder

Some Instructions on Bending

Washed Up

En Route

Here on Earth

Ms Demeanor

Pipe Dream

In Defense of the Occasional Gale

In Thailand the Air Didn’t Move

The Back Forty

III. Everyday Incarnations

Wayward

Taffy and Cold Feet

Delicate Arch

Far and Away

Bear

Hunger’s Plate of Secrets: Act I

Reading Alone at Night

Storm Toads: an Oracle

Earthworks 301

Beloved Raptor

Where the Sky Opens

Jonah’s Whale Addresses the Almighty

IV. Tree, Temple, Wing

Lauds in a Pocket

Re: Union

I Try to Forgive Your Absence, Facing the Snake in the Kitchen

Yes

Sunday Shoes

Love and Apostasy

Picasso Might Have Seen It Like This

In the Hothouse

Suicide Trees

Return Engagement

Long Memories

Catching Fire: Notes to a Raku Vase

V. Segue

Conclusions

Hunger’s Plate of Secrets: Act II

Strung Out

Every hurt place she begins to name

Every Longing Implies a Beyond

Altar

Beginnings

St. Kevin’s Blackbird

Migrations

Bedrock

Psalm 727

Afterward

Procrastination

Roaming Charges

Notes

Acknowledgments

In her debut collection Where the Sky Opens: A Partial Cosmography, Klein invites us, her journey mates, to encounter a world more beautiful, complex and fragile than we often expect at the beginning of our faith histories. From the natural wonder of toads and lichens and mountain trails to the wild, savory, perilous, graced marriage relationship, these poems illuminate a sensitivity to life’s lights and shadows through some of