Between Mirage and Miracle

Selected Poems for Seasons, Festivals, and the Occasional Revelation

J. Barrie Shepherd

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610974974
  9781498260961
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621893998
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In this volume, Shepherd selects from these, and from other unpublished works, to shape a series of poems that seek to portray and even illuminate, to some extent, the life of the spirit. They begin by tracing the progress of a typical year--January through December--but also by noting, and celebrating at times, the high points of "The Christian Year": Lent-Easter, Pentecost, Thanksgiving, Advent-Christmas, and Epiphany. Other, more generally themed, less calendar-related poems follow, including poems that reflect on the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center--an attack in which several of the author's parishioners and friends were killed. This is a book to be dipped into, rather than read right through. It should provide fertile soil for the practice of daily prayer and meditation.

Late Call

What do the geese cry

one to another, angling

across the early winter sky

this Advent morning? Surely

it is a call of courage, of

encouragement passing by, the

cheering hope, keen expectation

of neglectful fields, smooth waters

up ahead before the darkness settles in.

Today I waited for them knowing high

within the bones—far from my brain

...

Table of contents

• Between Mirage and Miracle
• Book List
• Permissions
• Preface
• Between Mirage and Miracle
• Nunc Dimittis
• Forest Snowfall—Before Sunrise
• Unseasonable
• Ordinary Time
• Definition
• On Backing Out
• Valentine’s Day
• Trisagion
• Ash Wednesday
• Looking for Lent
• Forecast
• CYCLE
• Septuagesima Sunday
• . . . And Heaven Too?
• Peepers
• Holy Week
• Temple Cleansing
• Holy Tuesday
• Renderings
• Rendition (Render unto Caesar . . .)
• Mid (Holy) Week
• Defining—Holy Thursday
• One Kiss
• Trade Secrets
• Status Report—Saturday
• Harrowing
• Holy Saturday at The Green Market
• First Sunday
• Hope Weed
• Debriefing
• Divine Dilemma?
• Two Porpoises Passed By
• Wind Sock Kites Ocean City
• Anointings
• Real Presence
• Lawn Care
• Un-dividing Wall
• Chesapeake Daybreak
• Catch of the Day—Chebeague Island, Maine
• Epiphanies Variegated
• Alternative Medicine
• Hummers
• Autumn’s Call
• Autumn
• Terms in Contradiction
• Church Picnic
• Fall Faith
• Digging Dahlias
• Daylight Saving
• Autumn’s Weather
• November Dusk—The Eve of Christ the King
• Thank Offering
• Thanksgiving Wish
• Cold Turkey Days
• Late Call
• Hanging The Greens
• Advent Saturday—With Catriona in New York
• Aftershave
• December Eighteen— Awaiting the First Snowstorm
• Revisiting Solstice
• Winter Solstice
• Pre-Nativity—December 23
• Some Assembly Required
• The Coming of the Light
• Don’t Stop Me . . .
• The Silent Seers
• The Midwife of Bethlehem
• Minimizing Magic
• Toltec Point—Winnipesaukee
• Seasonings
• Bomb Fragment
• Dreamhaven
• With His Stripes
• First Fear
• Falling Away
• The News So Far . . .
• Cadenza—A New Song to the Lord
• Stained Glass Windows
• Housewarming
• Recipe—For a Church Cookbook
• Clock Minder
• Calling
• Eroding
• Reasons
• Why I Still Go
• Significant
• Seeing Whole
• Secret
• Fountain—Brooklyn Botanical Garden
• On Hearing Bruckner’s Ninth Again
• The Beauty of Xiaohe
• Amended Credo
• A Visit to Saint Paul’s Chapel
• Mail From New York City
• Setting Up the Advent Wreath—November 2001
• Homeland Security—The Eve of Advent
• Post Epiphany—January 2002
• Worldly Wisdom?
• Lay of the Land