Pilgrimages: Poems

By Andrew J. Calis

A sidewalk there is still stained with his blood.
Through metered poetry and a focus on sound and image, Pilgrimages traces a journey to God and self-knowledge via the side streets, stumbles, and uncertainties of the human experience. The poems in this volume explore the difficulties and burdens of life, softened by the solace of faith. Despite moments of desperation and failure, there is endless hope and beauty found in divine love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725259362

Andrew J. Calis

Andrew J. Calis holds a PhD in English from the Catholic University of America and teaches at a Catholic preparatory school in Maryland. He has published in Dappled Things, Presence, America, and elsewhere and lives outside of Baltimore with his wife and four children.

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Pilgrimages

Poems

Andrew J. Calis

Pilgrimages

Poems

Copyright ©

2020

Andrew J. Calis. 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,

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Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5934-8

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5935-5

ebook isbn:978-1-7252-5936-2

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

02/06/20

To my dad who loves us more than he could say, and to my mom who is a living saint.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,Prone to leave the God I love;Here’s my heart, O, take and seal it,Seal it for Thy courts above.

—Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

I To God and to the Cloud’s Edge

In Adoration: Three Poems

II. Reformed

III. The Size and Shape

Where can I like Jonah go?

You Are

The Black Hole Can Only Devour So Much

On the Dead Who Are Promised to Rise

You Are

God Seen, Saint of the Unknown

A Lesson in Grace

Prayers for Shaped Nature

You Are

God Who Makes Life and Made Them Both

In Adoration: April 2019

II To the Memories of My Father

Walls: A Photograph

Jerusalem, Heart

The Tattoo You Never Got

III To The Shattered City

Breaking up a fight at school

Five Vultures Sitting on a Telephone Pole in the Rain

I. The Splash of Rain Came First

II. In baptism birth

III. A walk home

His song, a second loss

Homeless for the First Time: An Interview

Circulatory Systems: D.C.

The Small

women speaking of lenses / on the metro

Warmer than Wine

In Blinding Light

I. In NoMa

II. In Blinding Light

Whispered, Unheard

Class

Black Rot

IV To The Shattered Self

In Mourning

Humility and Power

What I Shouldn’t Say

I. Closed-Throated

II. What I Shouldn’t Say

At Depths Beyond

Losing Sleep

Need

Death Grows Unkept Like Wild Ivy

The Fall: Another Dream about Dying

Myopic

Rocking the Baby at Sunset and Dreaming of Sleep

Broken Sleep

The Weight of Fire

The Length of Winter

A Wedding and a Mote of Dust

I. At the Reception

II. At the Birth

III. At the Cocktail Hour

IV. Before