The Sunrise Liturgy. Mia Anderson
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The Sunrise Liturgy
A Poem Sequence
Mia Anderson
The Sunrise Liturgy
A Poem Sequence
Copyright © 2012 Mia Anderson. 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. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Wipf & Stock
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
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ISBN 13: 978-1-62032-016-7
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7055-7
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Cover Photo © Mia Anderson.
for Tom, twin, always
and for Rowan
Caveat lector
Over and over.
You have entered this life?
Be warned.
Over and over the sun.
You grew up perhaps
with the cow [jumped]
over the moon.
This is different. Here you will find
the sunrise liturgy.
Here you will find things repeating themselves.
Even first times repeat themselves
as first times.
You think all this
iterating iteration is a version of
hell? It is heaven
for those for whom it is heaven.
Things don’t come clearer.
We are two species
the hell species and the heaven species.
I don’t say we can’t inhabit both.
We have dual citizenship.
I just wanted to warn you.
This is the sunrise liturgy and mostly it is heaven.
This is for those for whom it is heaven.
Readable but not read
Dayspring : you before
at spring of day, at first
jump of sun using the horizon as a spring-board.
Or the spring-board itself.
Or an invite to a Jump-Up.
Or day’s season of beginnings — daily freshening source
of wave or particle.
‘The night has passed and the day lies open before us….’
Start of every morning. Day like a book flat on its spine
pages to left of you pages to right
wide
open
readable but not read.
A slice of horizon with a lid of sky on a plate of water
le fleuve, ever-moving, flowing towards
the read pages, away
from the unread
ever-passing, time’s model.
Your eye, reading. Horizon a blink
the far shore the eye-lid with its lashes, the near shore the lower lashes
you the pupil in the middle
at your paedeia, scanning, duty at its delight the Other Book before, learner
with your beginner’s licence, blink, and the colour has changed
like a carousel of old-fashioned slides, blink, and the flame
has gone rose, the rose peach, the peach
gold, the gold ivory and luminous cream, and then —
Brother Sun has sprung
pop-up jack-in-the-biodegradable-box of night
coming up from down-under
gasping for air as he clears the watery fleuve.
The people that walked in darkness, or stumbled from bed to bath or
wandered sleepless groping for texts like capsules
have seen a great light, Brother Sun leaping like a Lord
the sun of righteousness arising
my! — but
that Charles Wesley could sing!
‘Christ, whose glory fills the skies’ can you hear the tune?
‘Dayspring
from on high, be near;/ Day-star,
in my heart appear.’
Almost 200 years of it flowing by
no one dipping in the same tune twice
the same always anew.
Like the light.
Liturgy : the solemn procession
of numinous vapour off the fleuve festooning the minus 35 degrees
as it glides downstream
an armada dedicated to self-annihilation
in the Sol Glorianus :
Christ whose glory fills the skies, Light from Light.
Dayspring : the time of first take on ‘the fair glory’
linking the light within with the light without.
The people who walked without light
have seen a great light.
And eaten it
with their eyes.
Day within.
How dawn
Look. Look. You see?
— how dawn
like a benign flesh-eating disease
invades the shrinking dark,
devours.
The dark shrinks, cowers
behind small objects,
huddles, hurls itself
away from tall trees, the lawn’s
a line-up of escapees.
It does no good.
Like Mr Todd.
The sun will trump you every time, Mr
Wind-Who-Would blow Todd’s coat off.
It doesn’t work that way.
Sun beams, it