Light's Ladder
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In this extraordinary new collection by distinguished poet Christopher Howell, the opening poem presents us with a spiritual paradox that will echo throughout its pages. The speaker remembers an earlier time of happiness, freedom, and a certain innocence. The poem closes with:
And if he remembers now
he is in love, which is the soul’s condition, and alone
because that is how we live.
"How we live" is the book's major inquiry; its illustration, the poems' major achievement. How do we live, in our dailiness, in our loves, our private and global wars? And, in the face of unbearable grief, how can we live?
Keats
When Keats, at last beyond the curtain
of love’s distraction, lay dying in his room
on the Piazza di Spagna, the melody of the Bernini
Fountain “filling him like flowers,”
he held his breath like a coin, looked out
into the moonlight and thought he saw snow.
He did not suppose it was fever or the body’s
weakness turning the mind. He thought, “England!”
and there he was, secretly, for the rest
of his improvidently short life: up to his neck
in sleigh bells and the impossibly English cries
of street venders, perfect
and affectionate as his soul.
For days the snow and statuary sang him so far
beyond regret that if now you walk rancorless
and alone there, in the piazza, the white shadow
of his last words to Severn, “Don’t be frightened,”
may enter you.
Read more from Christopher Howell
Love's Last Number: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGaze Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Light's Ladder
Related ebooks
The Sugar Orchard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead Socialites. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTime and Fevers: New and Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn A Calm Ocean, Drifting: Poems and Essays on Living With Mental Illness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetry for the Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStomata Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDivinely Guided: Faith, Love, Hope, Peace and Joy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmeliorate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes to Mom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unheard Screams: A True Childhood Horror Story of a CODA Survivor and How She Overcame Her Father's Sexual Abuse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSixfold Poetry Summer 2019 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMind Invasion: The Reality of Voices and the Delusion of Psychiatry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essence of a Pearl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSend My Roots Rain: A Companion on the Grief Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemons In My Windows: A Poetry Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTorch River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalfway to Venus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Toward a Catalogue of Falling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirst Nights: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust Be Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPowerless Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplicated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHelen of Troy, and Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Collection From A Wicked Mind: The Anthology of a Psychopath Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDark Recesses of the Mind: An Exploration of Depression, PTSD, and Poetic Forms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongs of Chaos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Liked It Anyway: A Fun and Feisty Guide to Beating the Breakup Blues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Date My Story: True Stories of Modern Dating, Sex, and Heartbreak Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting Through the Apocalypse: Pandemic Poetry and Prose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings12 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Light's Ladder
0 ratings0 reviews