Within This Tree of Bones
Written over five decades, these poems begin fixed in the human condition, our common experience of an imperfect world. Slowly, under the aegis of the Spirit, they move toward a brighter vision of things: they ask us to "dream in that fecund darkness until all shapes are shining." Poetry offers us an experience of union with the alarming and enthralling world we live in, as well as glimpses of what transcends it and is beyond language. It reminds us that all is connected and supports the hope that light will triumph. The author trusts that these poems may do the same as they explore the chain of being from animal to human, from serpent to angel—and that joy is the final dominant note.
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Within This Tree of Bones
Written over five decades, these poems begin fixed in the human condition, our common experience of an imperfect world. Slowly, under the aegis of the Spirit, they move toward a brighter vision of things: they ask us to "dream in that fecund darkness until all shapes are shining." Poetry offers us an experience of union with the alarming and enthralling world we live in, as well as glimpses of what transcends it and is beyond language. It reminds us that all is connected and supports the hope that light will triumph. The author trusts that these poems may do the same as they explore the chain of being from animal to human, from serpent to angel—and that joy is the final dominant note.
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Within This Tree of Bones

Within This Tree of Bones

by Robert Siegel
Within This Tree of Bones

Within This Tree of Bones

by Robert Siegel

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Overview

Written over five decades, these poems begin fixed in the human condition, our common experience of an imperfect world. Slowly, under the aegis of the Spirit, they move toward a brighter vision of things: they ask us to "dream in that fecund darkness until all shapes are shining." Poetry offers us an experience of union with the alarming and enthralling world we live in, as well as glimpses of what transcends it and is beyond language. It reminds us that all is connected and supports the hope that light will triumph. The author trusts that these poems may do the same as they explore the chain of being from animal to human, from serpent to angel—and that joy is the final dominant note.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781620326312
Publisher: Cascade Books
Publication date: 01/07/2013
Series: Poiema Poetry , #3
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

ROBERT SIEGEL (1939-2012) is the author of ten books of poetry and fiction. His poetry includes A Pentecost of Finches, The Waters Under the Earth, In a Pig's Eye, and The Beasts & the Elders. His poetry has won prizes and fellowships from Poetry, Prairie Schooner, America, the Friends of Literature, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His fiction includes the award-winning Whalesong trilogy. He has taught at Dartmouth, Princeton, Wheaton, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was professor emeritus of English.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

I To Dream in that Fecund Darkness

Matins 3

Annunciation Over Lake Michigan 4

Grendel 5

Swimming Snake 7

Deer Tick 9

Blackbird in the Chimney 11

The Newly Dead 13

Surgeon After Hours 14

Light Registers 15

God's Back 16

Fireworks 18

The Serpent Speaks 20

Great Murderers 24

In the Cosmetic Lab: Rabbit #234 25

The Disconsolate Chimera 26

Air Field 27

Stalker 28

Barney Bodkin 30

Them 32

Sheep at Nightfall 33

Simple Simon 34

Christmas Eve 35

A Bear 36

The Snow Falls 37

Chaos Theory: The Lorenz Mask 39

Hunting in Widener Library 41

Post-Tribulational Rapture 43

Fun City 45

Primary Red 47

A Psalm of Midlife 50

Walden Communion 51

Looking for Mt. Monadnock 53

Universal Pan 54

Oil Spill 55

March Woodpecker 56

Going On 57

II Until all Shapes are Shining

Inchworm 61

Giant Panda 63

Rabbit 64

Tiger 67

Spider 69

One Word More (Spider) 72

Llama 73

Nightcrawler 75

Lobo 77

Evening Wolves 79

Rat 81

A Lady Who Lov'd a Swine 83

Ego 85

Hog Heaven 87

Octopus 89

Mussel 91

Peeper (1) 93

Silverfish 95

Slug 97

Caterpillar 98

Muskie 100

Grasshopper 102

Water Strider 104

Daddy Long Legs 106

Gnat 109

Opossum 110

Hippopotamus 112

Mole 114

Snail 116

Seer 119

III The Two Adams

Adam's Dream 123

Sheba 124

Ezekiel 125

Annunciation 126

What He Remembers 127

The Prodigal 128

Lazarus 129

A Colt, the Foal of an Ass 130

Judas 132

The Rock 133

After "The Dream of the Rood" (ll. 1-23) 134

A Notable Failure 135

The Shroud 136

Thomas 137

The Epicure 138

Patmos 139

IV The Face of Light

Peonies 143

After Viewing the Bust of Nefertiti 144

Spinning 146

The Gift 148

Haiku 1 149

Inside the Outer Kingdom of the Khan 150

In a Farmhouse Near Porlock 153

Connection 155

Traherne 157

Derelicts 159

New Year 160

In the Solar Room 161

Rest 162

Haiku 2 163

Wings 164

Mornings at Seven 165

Easy Rider 168

Half a Second 169

Haiku 3 170

A Song of Praises 171

Aubade 173

Not This, Not That 175

Voice of Many Waters 176

Rinsed with Gold, Endless, Walking the Fields 178

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Robert Siegel is one of my favorite poets, and I'm frustrated that so many readers are unfamiliar with him. This handsome 'new and selected' volume is an ideal introduction to his work, and I may just resort to hawking it on street corners, like those ragamuffin kids peddling papers in old movies. You want the latest news? Read Within This Tree of Bones."
—John Wilson
Editor, Books & Culture

"Robert Siegel possesses the transformational power of a wizard. Whether he casts his eye on a pig or a night crawler, whether he is standing in falling rain or in a swath of sunlight, he can make the world seem more like itself. For forty years now his poetry has been clarifying the world for me. Bob's new sonnets bring biblical subjects and landscapes into such intimate and vivid language that I will never again think of them in the same way. The things he writes about—as he says in 'The Annunciation'—grow 'more distinct, themselves / in a way beyond explaining.' That seems to me to be a brilliant definition of what great poetry can do. It clarifies the world beyond any other kind of explanation. This book does that. It is filled with great poetry."
—Jeanne Murray Walker
Professor of English
Head of Creative Writing, University of Delaware

"Robert Siegel's business is tracking whatever order, not chaos, obtains. He knows certainly 'the helpless dance out their fear' as much as 'the divine tread fall[s] again and again.' A cornucopia of wise songs, monologues, psalms, prayers, fables, sonnets, and more, Within This Tree of Bones is what I think a career book should be: ambitious, sonorous, eclectic, serious, joyful."
—David J Smith,
Professor of Poetry,
Johns Hopkins University

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