Song

Brigit Pegeen Kelly writes a lyrical, surreal poetry that flies toward the magical. Informed by a spiritual vision, her poems sweep us into new relationships, as the darkness that “doesn’t come down, but rises up. . . . It gets the ankles first. It circles / The ankles like flood water gradually filling/The basement of a house. Dark water full/ Of unnameable things.” “Percival” Percival comes. If I pretend he is not here He grows larger in the barn, filling all the shadows, And then I cannot go in to feed the cows And I hear those who give milk crying for milk And I see their hearts, like children’s palms, Opening and closing in the garden. Even in winter I keep the garden. And Percival, who never looks At flowers, taps his fingers on the water That has frozen in buckets in the barn. I hear that tapping. Even as I heard him coming, Last night through my sleep, through the snow, His heavy black coat dropping like wings. ISBN: 978-1-880238-13-4 © BOA Editions, Ltd. 1995