The Chance of Home
Poems
Published on 20. February 2018
128 pages
978-1-64060-118-5 (ISBN)
Description
The Chance of Home
Somewhere there must be where
no one wonders whether you belong...
So begins the title poem of this remarkable collection from a popular poet and scholar of mysticism.
These poems remind us that "home" shapes us, not as a particular place; home is a way of being in this world, for us and for the creatures with whom we share it. It finds expression in the inner light that carries us through dark seasons and in what inspires us to risk life in the face of death. Home comes to us in the unexpected glimpses we sometimes have of a wholeness resonant enough to hold us amid fragments. Many of these poems come from a long looking at the familiar and the ordinary, a patient listening for traces of a beauty that might still save us-in the rhythms of a street musician plying his trade in a Lisbon subway, the radiance of birdsong interrupting the night's last hour, and the tolling of an old temple bell that "still sings in the silences." They ponder the resilience that lies at the heart of the natural world, as well as in our desire to thrive amid the distractions that pressure us in our lives. In an over-saturated age like ours, they invite us to linger at the edges of silence, and wonder what it means that we are not made for reason alone, but "for what song can bring of solace and delight."
Somewhere there must be where
no one wonders whether you belong...
So begins the title poem of this remarkable collection from a popular poet and scholar of mysticism.
These poems remind us that "home" shapes us, not as a particular place; home is a way of being in this world, for us and for the creatures with whom we share it. It finds expression in the inner light that carries us through dark seasons and in what inspires us to risk life in the face of death. Home comes to us in the unexpected glimpses we sometimes have of a wholeness resonant enough to hold us amid fragments. Many of these poems come from a long looking at the familiar and the ordinary, a patient listening for traces of a beauty that might still save us-in the rhythms of a street musician plying his trade in a Lisbon subway, the radiance of birdsong interrupting the night's last hour, and the tolling of an old temple bell that "still sings in the silences." They ponder the resilience that lies at the heart of the natural world, as well as in our desire to thrive amid the distractions that pressure us in our lives. In an over-saturated age like ours, they invite us to linger at the edges of silence, and wonder what it means that we are not made for reason alone, but "for what song can bring of solace and delight."
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Person
Mark S. Burrows is scholar, poet, and teacher, known internationally for his work on theology and spirituality, mysticism and poetics. For more than two decades he taught in several graduate theological schools in the US and Germany. He is also a translator of German poetry and prose into English, and currently lives and teaches in Germany. Recent publications include his widely-celebrated translation of Rilke, Prayers of a Young Poet (Paraclete), and Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart (Hampton Roads).
