F L Y E R

By Kevin McGrath

FLYER is a lyrical work about the vicissitudes of affection and desire. Set against a background of sea and islands, it portrays the complexity of human love. Classically formulated, the poems represent levels of metaphor which are only available to a passionate condition: metaphors that reach far beyond a worldly situation. Both experience and ideals and merged in the imagery of the book, supplying the poetry with a formal transparence of great richness. Flyer draws its style from preliterate traditions of both East and West and offers the reader a glimpse out of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 7, 2005
• ISBN: 9781469121208

Kevin McGrath

Kevin McGrath was born in southern China in 1951 and was educated in England and Scotland; he has lived and worked in France, Greece, and India. Presently he is an Associate of the Department of South Asian Studies and Poet Laureate at Lowell House, Harvard University. McGrath lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his family.

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F L Y E R

Kevin McGrath

Copyright © 2005 by Kevin McGrath.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 1-4134-9035-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-2120-8

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CONTENTS

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To Leanna

Io spero di dicer di lei quello che mai non fue detto d’alcuna.

1

BOOMING down towards Kythera

With five sails bent and tugging,

A white hull through the waves

Breaking ultra and aquamarine.

With you beside me at the wheel

And all of life behind us,

The island on our starboard bow

Within a coruscating distance.

The apex of our known world

Quivering on the horizon:

Amorous together—you and I

Among the groves and saplings.

Our anchor firm within a bay

Riding out the warm nights,

A ruined citadel upon the cliffs

Outlined by constellation.

What is the extent of time

With which we are provided,

As I hold you in my arms

The vessel rocking in the dark.

How to make the voyage last

Beyond anything we know,

What words are possible now

That can take us further on?

Beyond Kythera towards where

Our boat will sail herself,

Out of time’s circumspection

Fluctuating in the light

Where fame will always go.

2

From the south the sacred geese

Bow down low and call,

Swallows dart and flash

As they indicate their praise.

Blatant and ecstatic gulls

Fly through a rising sky,

Unflawed and aloof from

Every kind of living