Popular in Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ “Italian triumph”

McGill University Michael Fronda

Arts and Humanities

Lincoln and the Jews

Brandeis University Jonathan Sarna

Arts and Humanities

Amputations and Convalescence

University of Western Australia Emily Brink

Art

Drawing on the past: Palladio, his precursors and knowledge of ancient architecture

University of Birmingham David Hemsoll

Art

Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman’s Aleph, 1956–1966

University of San Diego Chelsea Behle Fralick

Arts and Humanities

Early Modern Natural Law Theories

University of Copenhagen Knud Haakonssen

Butterfly Nebula

View more insights in Books - Arts and Humanities - Art

View more figures from St. John's Seminary in Camarillo

View the page of Laura Reece Hogan

Read the Study

Laura Reece-Hogan delves into the Butterfly Nebula, exploring the intersections of the physical universe, divine, and human experience.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 5, 2023

Generating Workspace

Export as PDF

This video video is a transcript of a presentation discussing a poetry collection inspired by themes of curiosity about the natural world and the human condition, particularly during the pandemic. The author explains how their poetry reflects a connection between the expansive universe and intimate human experiences. The poems explore a range of topics, from sea creatures to cosmic phenomena like nebulae, highlighting transformations akin to metamorphosis and resurrection.

Key themes include the interplay of death and new life, the search for identity, and the way understanding the external world can enhance self-awareness. The author shares specific poems, such as "Heart as Sipho" and "Butterfly Nebula," to illustrate these themes, discussing how they delve into both the vastness of the universe and the intricacies of human emotions.

The collection emphasizes that humans are deeply interconnected with nature, and by recognizing this relationship, one can appreciate both vulnerability and the potential for change. The author expresses a desire to interrogate and understand identity and faith through creative expression, ultimately suggesting that transformation, both cosmic and personal, is a fundamental aspect of existence.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.165 --> 00:02.295
Curiosity about the natural world

00:02.635 --> 00:06.615
and a desire to delve into our human condition motivated

00:06.615 --> 00:07.895
this poetry collection.

00:08.555 --> 00:13.095
The book was first sparked by looking to the natural world

00:13.275 --> 00:14.335
for patterns

00:14.355 --> 00:17.655
and purpose, to explore how it connects to

00:18.265 --> 00:20.775
false human beings and to the divine.

00:21.675 --> 00:25.055
As it happened, I was just starting to write these poems

00:25.155 --> 00:28.015
during the beginning of the pandemic, during the lockdown,

00:28.065 --> 00:32.295
which only increased my longing for wide open spaces

00:32.595 --> 00:34.495
and the world of the physical universe.

00:35.235 --> 00:38.535
Uh, so the poems of this collection reached from the bottom

00:38.635 --> 00:42.655
of the ocean to the land, to the edges of outer space.

00:43.475 --> 00:45.975
And although they are expansive in scope,

00:46.045 --> 00:50.455
they often end up describing a very intimate interior space.

00:51.655 --> 00:55.135
I think, the poems is charting the vast multiverse,

00:55.355 --> 00:59.415
yet simultaneously mapping the interior of the human being.

01:00.595 --> 01:04.655
Um, an example of this could be the poem, heart

01:05.315 --> 01:06.615
as Sipho.

01:06.835 --> 01:11.655
So a sipho is a long colonized sea creature think

01:11.655 --> 01:16.285
kind of really long seas snake, called the spore.

01:16.785 --> 01:19.325
Uh, so this poem is about that creature,

01:19.425 --> 01:22.965
yet it's also saying something about the human heart.

01:23.425 --> 01:28.165
So I'd like to read, heart as spore.

01:29.775 --> 01:34.115
The researchers had imagined it whip saw through

01:34.765 --> 01:39.275
silty sleeves, the giant spore sea worm

01:39.415 --> 01:42.275
of such ghostly fiber and link.

01:42.775 --> 01:46.475
It would take hours just to watch it pass

01:47.555 --> 01:51.875
thriving blue bioluminescence skin of it simultaneously

01:52.625 --> 01:56.675
here and far now they witness it,

01:57.125 --> 02:01.635
photograph it, stare the improbable slithering

02:01.815 --> 02:05.035
150 foot figment

02:05.615 --> 02:10.035
ribbon in a quantum state, the floating bell

02:10.095 --> 02:13.515
of head so distant from the end

02:13.535 --> 02:15.515
of its colonized chambers

02:16.145 --> 02:19.835
that the steadiness steers far from the fret

02:20.885 --> 02:25.515
sting, jostle, and the eerie suck and ripple of its path.

02:26.735 --> 02:28.955
Now prior Dubia leap

02:29.455 --> 02:34.325
and swim forward with sureness now wind

02:34.885 --> 02:37.405
sideways and uncertain fatigue.

02:38.385 --> 02:43.245
The head arrives in an Australian oceanic canyon

02:43.815 --> 02:47.325
while the tail trails in a different time zone,

02:48.865 --> 02:52.525
so far from true cadence of itself.

02:53.345 --> 02:56.485
Two places at once there

02:57.065 --> 02:58.885
the water glows aqua

02:59.185 --> 03:00.365
In your presence.

03:01.025 --> 03:05.365
And here the long thin muscle still heaving,

03:06.365 --> 03:09.525
reaching along the night, drench bottom.

03:10.065 --> 03:11.885
In the course of writing this collection,

03:12.165 --> 03:14.445
I became a little obsessed with Nebula.

03:15.585 --> 03:19.365
Nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas

03:19.505 --> 03:21.925
and outer space where new stars form,

03:22.545 --> 03:27.085
but it also typically results from a supernova, which

03:27.105 --> 03:29.165
as you probably know, is the death of a star.

03:30.065 --> 03:32.485
So for me, Nebula was a contradiction.

03:33.145 --> 03:36.565
It kind came to represent this nexus

03:36.625 --> 03:38.405
of death and new life.

03:39.705 --> 03:44.365
Um, construction and reconstruction or just change.

03:45.395 --> 03:49.625
There are thousands of classified neli in the universe.

03:50.125 --> 03:54.785
Um, but I picked just 12, to, include as poems.

03:55.105 --> 03:59.145
I I wrote about them in, butterfly Nebula,

03:59.205 --> 04:01.825
and they kind of stud the narrative arc

04:01.825 --> 04:03.145
or journey of the book.

04:04.325 --> 04:08.425
The title poem, butterfly Nebula, captures that sense

04:08.425 --> 04:12.505
of transformation that is at the heart of the collection.

04:13.775 --> 04:15.675
So I'd like to read that for you.

04:16.575 --> 04:19.595
Um, this is Butterfly Nebula.

04:21.865 --> 04:24.265
A stellar death must herald it.

04:25.085 --> 04:29.645
The hottest star throws off its envelope, chorus

04:30.185 --> 04:34.325
of dust eaten and wretched all its life.

04:35.595 --> 04:38.095
Two violent jets of gases.

04:38.765 --> 04:42.135
Over 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit

04:42.805 --> 04:47.375
must rip across space, many heavy light years

04:47.915 --> 04:51.735
out from under tightened belt of the body,

04:52.605 --> 04:56.895
dark slit running through the waist, a disc

04:57.115 --> 05:01.255
of weight, a thumb of the divine hees,

05:01.715 --> 05:04.815
the butterfly almost to severing

05:06.305 --> 05:08.445
the thing about a resurrection.

05:09.625 --> 05:12.045
The chrysalis must cleave

05:13.055 --> 05:17.495
expel the lifeblood, damp, crushed wings.

05:17.955 --> 05:20.415
At first unrecognizable,

05:21.775 --> 05:24.875
the Magdalene looked in all the wrong places.

05:26.175 --> 05:28.395
She thought he was the gardener.

05:29.795 --> 05:34.295
The split apart vowels of her name uttered

05:35.075 --> 05:39.445
unfold across constellation, stretching,

05:39.665 --> 05:42.805
stream of ultraviolet radiation

05:43.545 --> 05:47.725
making passed off skin of the dead star

05:48.515 --> 05:52.805
glow and two arching nebular lobes.

05:53.755 --> 05:56.885
It's new form, still gathering

05:57.065 --> 05:58.065
Energy. The

05:58.065 --> 06:02.285
collection is very rooted in the natural world,

06:02.315 --> 06:04.925
that speaks to who we are as human beings, which

06:05.145 --> 06:08.085
for me includes our relationship with the divine.

06:08.795 --> 06:12.925
What lies beyond our grasp, be it cosmic or spiritual?

06:14.505 --> 06:16.785
I think it's possible to know ourselves better

06:17.365 --> 06:21.265
by examining the world around us and all it's amazing

06:21.525 --> 06:23.225
and intricate beauty

06:23.885 --> 06:25.985
and understanding ourselves as a part of it.

06:27.165 --> 06:29.625
We often, I think anyway, lose sight of that

06:30.165 --> 06:32.065
and think of ourselves as separate.

06:32.245 --> 06:35.265
You know, we're kind of observing it separate from it.

06:35.885 --> 06:39.545
Um, but we're, we're actually really an integral part of it.

06:39.595 --> 06:41.705
We're woven right into the fabric of it.

06:42.365 --> 06:45.625
Um, so I think, by seeing ourselves as a part

06:45.625 --> 06:48.825
of this landscape of things that are always evolving,

06:49.405 --> 06:51.545
we can appreciate both our frailty

06:52.755 --> 06:56.215
and also our capacity for agency and change.

06:57.305 --> 07:01.285
We can choose to have a mindset, a purpose and renewal.

07:02.235 --> 07:05.935
Uh, these poems are fascinated with the tearing down

07:05.955 --> 07:08.255
of things, but also the building up of new things.

07:08.765 --> 07:11.015
They love to ask the questions,

07:11.765 --> 07:13.855
what is this thing becoming?

07:15.325 --> 07:18.695
When is it the new thing? Will we recognize it?

07:19.275 --> 07:21.695
You kind of hear that in the last poem I read

07:22.045 --> 07:25.975
that The New Butterfly is at first almost unrecognizable.

07:26.985 --> 07:28.065
A lot of the poems

07:28.405 --> 07:31.065
and this collection play with these questions.

07:32.015 --> 07:35.315
Um, and another poem that serves kind of as a, of an

07:36.135 --> 07:38.315
an example of will we recognize it.

07:38.415 --> 07:41.835
One thing becoming another is fear

07:42.415 --> 07:44.275
as absent mountain lion.

07:45.105 --> 07:49.475
When the poem begins, we hear from a speaker who is fearful

07:49.625 --> 07:53.355
because of a roaming mountain lion, which she cannot see.

07:54.055 --> 07:55.715
But by the end of the poem,

07:56.255 --> 07:57.995
the mountain lion becomes present,

07:58.615 --> 08:02.145
but within the speaker herself, Mrs.

08:02.335 --> 08:04.985
Fear as absent mountain lion

08:07.255 --> 08:11.355
at the trailhead, the hand lettered cardboard sign,

08:12.085 --> 08:16.195
large mountain lion sided here yesterday.

08:16.575 --> 08:18.875
At this time, he alert.

08:20.125 --> 08:23.135
This is my trail back of my hand,

08:23.955 --> 08:28.575
but my eyes race up the foothills home grasses

08:28.795 --> 08:32.615
and scrub odds of feline caution

08:32.995 --> 08:34.495
or boldness shift

08:34.675 --> 08:37.615
and shadow my own soft

08:37.845 --> 08:39.695
deliciousness weighed.

08:40.725 --> 08:45.165
I walk in a landscape of unanticipated pounce

08:45.165 --> 08:48.885
and claw risk crouching on the ridge

08:49.955 --> 08:54.805
here, the peak of every stopping countered

08:55.475 --> 08:59.255
By the steady pant of every perseverance.

08:59.915 --> 09:02.975
Purple fix on the wild, lavender

09:03.235 --> 09:06.495
and sage yellow skimm of finch

09:06.675 --> 09:09.935
and cottontail through chaparral crunch

09:10.235 --> 09:13.855
of free terrain, my slow

09:14.455 --> 09:18.695
loping muscle gambling sinew hunger

09:19.475 --> 09:21.575
set loose across the dust.

09:21.955 --> 09:23.415
So questions of faith

09:23.555 --> 09:26.615
and identity come into this conversation in the book

09:26.635 --> 09:28.615
around the tearing down in the building

09:28.715 --> 09:31.495
of another poem in the collection

09:32.005 --> 09:34.255
that looks at deconstruction

09:34.355 --> 09:36.255
and reconstruction of a thing

09:37.005 --> 09:41.055
with the Alicia Sea slug, which is a fascinating creature.

09:41.715 --> 09:45.455
And this poem offers a glimpse, into some of the,

09:45.675 --> 09:47.895
the faith themes that show up in the book.

09:49.155 --> 09:52.655
Uh, the epigraph of the poem is from the book of Ezekiel.

09:53.535 --> 09:54.815
I will give you a new heart

09:55.355 --> 09:59.975
and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies,

10:00.165 --> 10:03.535
your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.

10:04.945 --> 10:06.875
This is the Alicia

10:07.535 --> 10:10.195
Sea Slug things go sideways.

10:11.365 --> 10:14.105
The body opens the wrong doors.

10:14.765 --> 10:19.305
And lets, in bad company, popa pods that take over,

10:20.825 --> 10:25.235
then we carry it segments crippled with parasites.

10:26.565 --> 10:31.335
Stony growth, I think you mean it when you say

10:31.835 --> 10:33.695
you'll give me a new heart.

10:35.065 --> 10:39.145
I see evidence in stars in the sea slug

10:39.695 --> 10:43.545
that can detach its entire disease body

10:44.205 --> 10:48.065
and crawl away on orange porn antenna

10:49.145 --> 10:51.205
the head births a new form.

10:52.515 --> 10:56.005
Mangled sea stars and flatworms do this,

10:56.705 --> 11:00.885
but only the Alicia Sea slug routes a heart

11:01.595 --> 11:02.845
from just ahead.

11:04.105 --> 11:05.955
This is your prescription.

11:06.815 --> 11:08.635
You pry loose the, the cargo

11:09.215 --> 11:11.755
and craft fresh strands of light.

11:13.185 --> 11:15.995
When I unhook all the parts

11:16.775 --> 11:20.395
and struggle away, won't you come rebuild,

11:21.425 --> 11:24.955
tear down the years the locusts have eaten.

11:25.935 --> 11:30.465
Let the heavy consignment fall regenerate

11:31.205 --> 11:34.825
the glistening wholeness from only one piece.

11:36.195 --> 11:38.055
Let that piece be you.

11:38.485 --> 11:40.695
What kind of spiritual contradiction

11:40.695 --> 11:44.095
that the book considers is the negative way

11:44.315 --> 11:48.295
or the via negativa, which is a theology that asserts

11:48.295 --> 11:50.415
that the transcendent God is

11:50.415 --> 11:52.895
beyond human knowledge. So the idea

11:53.025 --> 11:56.125
Is, although we can know something about God through

11:56.685 --> 11:59.005
creation, God is ultimately unknowable.

11:59.855 --> 12:02.755
So even as we can enter into relationship with God,

12:02.815 --> 12:04.395
we approach an unknowing.

12:05.395 --> 12:09.195
I like looking to the natural world to find hints about how

12:09.375 --> 12:12.315
to advance along this path of darkness.

12:13.095 --> 12:15.515
Um, and I've done that.

12:15.635 --> 12:17.795
I did it in my previous poetry collection,

12:17.935 --> 12:19.115
litany of flights.

12:19.115 --> 12:22.315
There are a couple poems in there and in butterfly nebula.

12:22.495 --> 12:26.435
Um, there are several poems, that draw on this theme.

12:26.545 --> 12:29.995
Also. To me, spiritual darkness is a paradox.

12:30.695 --> 12:32.875
It may seem like nothing is happening

12:32.975 --> 12:34.955
and yet transformation is happening.

12:35.065 --> 12:36.155
It's there all along.

12:36.735 --> 12:40.915
Um, very like a new moon we might miss in the darkness

12:41.135 --> 12:42.315
of the night sky.

12:43.095 --> 12:46.875
Um, so the next poem I'd like to share with you is

12:47.575 --> 12:49.835
via New Moon.

12:52.705 --> 12:56.565
Why do I want the moon, which belongs to you?

12:57.875 --> 13:02.055
Why do I drive against the foothills like a maniac

13:02.235 --> 13:04.695
to moon hunt when it's gone missing?

13:05.695 --> 13:09.655
I don't understand what's happening to my physics.

13:10.895 --> 13:13.935
I might need to live in a tent for a month

13:14.445 --> 13:17.735
away from streetlights and other blazes.

13:18.575 --> 13:22.095
I might need a blade, need to cut my hair

13:22.315 --> 13:24.695
and nails to slimmest crescent

13:25.075 --> 13:29.295
and solve for white pleated wings of moth

13:29.875 --> 13:32.975
sprung hole from phases just

13:33.355 --> 13:34.935
to die for light.

13:36.255 --> 13:39.395
You've packed up the knot moon tonight,

13:40.115 --> 13:43.475
A hanging promise, your light will come

13:44.775 --> 13:48.395
go barefoot and the drought powdered dirt

13:49.125 --> 13:52.675
press hard against the hole of cocoon.

13:53.865 --> 13:58.365
The strongest sit in the dust unknowing, the strongest

13:59.025 --> 14:01.725
linger in the bind weight

14:02.145 --> 14:05.325
for faintest sliver emerge.

14:09.165 --> 14:13.265
So another kind of contradiction present in the book is

14:13.265 --> 14:15.385
found in the physical universe itself.

14:15.925 --> 14:19.065
Um, I mentioned one example that a supernova,

14:19.065 --> 14:21.745
which is the death of a star, may result in the nebula,

14:21.745 --> 14:24.545
which may also then result in new stars.

14:25.215 --> 14:27.985
That paradoxical tension between death

14:28.005 --> 14:31.025
and new life is a key con contradiction that kind

14:31.025 --> 14:34.025
of flows throughout, the poems.

14:34.455 --> 14:36.105
It's found in the physical universe

14:36.525 --> 14:38.305
and in several faith traditions,

14:38.335 --> 14:40.905
however you name it, metamorphosis,

14:41.305 --> 14:43.105
resurrection, transformation.

14:43.845 --> 14:46.425
And our world and universe are full

14:46.425 --> 14:50.585
of these things in constant transition, which both science

14:50.805 --> 14:51.845
and faith observe.

14:53.755 --> 14:58.335
We see this pattern of regeneration in cycles in the sea,

14:58.555 --> 15:01.375
on the land and also in space.

15:01.955 --> 15:05.335
But typically in space, it's over vast distances

15:05.995 --> 15:10.535
and on a completely different, size scale and timescale.

15:11.195 --> 15:12.575
And sometimes I think that kind

15:12.575 --> 15:15.175
of distance helps us perceive things more clearly.

15:16.175 --> 15:18.575
A star system or a supernova

15:18.635 --> 15:23.255
or a nebula is just otherworldly enough, just vast enough,

15:23.725 --> 15:27.695
just strange enough, yet also just real enough

15:28.475 --> 15:31.535
for gr it to be a useful lens for our own realities.

15:33.785 --> 15:35.485
So as an example,

15:35.785 --> 15:38.805
Kepler observed a supernova in 1604.

15:39.625 --> 15:43.885
And today we can only observe the aftermath, the remnant

15:44.345 --> 15:45.525
of the supernova.

15:46.425 --> 15:49.325
And I love thinking about this in terms of the question

15:49.465 --> 15:53.005
of when that's the thing which has broken apart

15:53.185 --> 15:55.765
or changed, be it cosmic object

15:55.985 --> 16:00.885
or living being, when does it become a new thing, Mrs.

16:01.685 --> 16:03.725
Kepler's supernova remnant?

16:05.825 --> 16:09.855
Maybe the remnant tells the whole story.

16:10.865 --> 16:14.095
Maybe the shattering says the wanting.

16:15.035 --> 16:19.455
And we just can't see the we in its visible form,

16:20.035 --> 16:23.655
the unleashed dazzle of matter, not debris,

16:24.195 --> 16:25.415
but a new creation.

16:26.325 --> 16:27.335
What remains?

16:28.075 --> 16:32.775
Our senders come together burning through time

16:32.995 --> 16:36.455
and space complete, even

16:36.755 --> 16:40.535
as the fusion arrives and gnarls the universe

16:40.715 --> 16:44.695
and appears to be an expulsion from cell,

16:46.075 --> 16:49.615
the astronomers trace the cataclysmic losing

16:49.875 --> 16:53.615
of matter into space, not by not

16:54.285 --> 16:55.695
body, by body.

16:56.515 --> 17:00.175
And we know something about vast collapse

17:00.445 --> 17:03.775
that ignites expansion even here,

17:04.775 --> 17:08.465
even in the fragile mass of the animal heart,

17:09.075 --> 17:12.145
which must fisure in order to love.

00:00 - Curiosity about the natural world and a desire to delve into our human condition motivated this poetry collection. The book was first sparked by looking to the natural world for patterns and purpose, to explore how it connects to

00:18 - false human beings and to the divine. As it happened, I was just starting to write these poems during the beginning of the pandemic, during the lockdown, which only increased my longing for wide open spaces and the world of the physical universe. so the poems of this collection reached from the bottom of the ocean to the land, to the edges of outer space. And although they are expansive in scope, they often end up describing a very intimate interior space. I think, the poems is charting the vast multiverse,

00:55 - yet simultaneously mapping the interior of the human being. an example of this could be the poem, heart as Sipho. So a sipho is a long colonized sea creature think kind of really long seas snake, called the spore. so this poem is about that creature, yet it's also saying something about the human heart. So I'd like to read, heart as spore. The researchers had imagined it whip saw through silty sleeves, the giant spore sea worm

01:39 - of such ghostly fiber and link. It would take hours just to watch it pass thriving blue bioluminescence skin of it simultaneously here and far now they witness it, photograph it, stare the improbable slithering 150 foot figment ribbon in a quantum state, the floating bell of head so distant from the end of its colonized chambers that the steadiness steers far from the fret

02:20 - sting, jostle, and the eerie suck and ripple of its path. Now prior Dubia leap and swim forward with sureness now wind sideways and uncertain fatigue. The head arrives in an Australian oceanic canyon while the tail trails in a different time zone, so far from true cadence of itself. Two places at once there the water glows aqua In your presence.

03:01 - And here the long thin muscle still heaving, reaching along the night, drench bottom. In the course of writing this collection, I became a little obsessed with Nebula. Nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas and outer space where new stars form, but it also typically results from a supernova, which as you probably know, is the death of a star. So for me, Nebula was a contradiction. It kind came to represent this nexus

03:36 - of death and new life. construction and reconstruction or just change. There are thousands of classified neli in the universe. but I picked just 12, to, include as poems. I I wrote about them in, butterfly Nebula, and they kind of stud the narrative arc or journey of the book. The title poem, butterfly Nebula, captures that sense of transformation that is at the heart of the collection. So I'd like to read that for you.

04:16 - this is Butterfly Nebula. A stellar death must herald it. The hottest star throws off its envelope, chorus of dust eaten and wretched all its life. Two violent jets of gases. Over 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit must rip across space, many heavy light years out from under tightened belt of the body, dark slit running through the waist, a disc of weight, a thumb of the divine hees,

05:01 - the butterfly almost to severing the thing about a resurrection. The chrysalis must cleave expel the lifeblood, damp, crushed wings. At first unrecognizable, the Magdalene looked in all the wrong places. She thought he was the gardener. The split apart vowels of her name uttered unfold across constellation, stretching, stream of ultraviolet radiation

05:43 - making passed off skin of the dead star glow and two arching nebular lobes. It's new form, still gathering Energy. The collection is very rooted in the natural world, that speaks to who we are as human beings, which for me includes our relationship with the divine. What lies beyond our grasp, be it cosmic or spiritual? I think it's possible to know ourselves better by examining the world around us and all it's amazing

06:21 - and intricate beauty and understanding ourselves as a part of it. We often, I think anyway, lose sight of that and think of ourselves as separate. You know, we're kind of observing it separate from it. but we're, we're actually really an integral part of it. We're woven right into the fabric of it. so I think, by seeing ourselves as a part of this landscape of things that are always evolving, we can appreciate both our frailty

06:52 - and also our capacity for agency and change. We can choose to have a mindset, a purpose and renewal. these poems are fascinated with the tearing down of things, but also the building up of new things. They love to ask the questions, what is this thing becoming? When is it the new thing? Will we recognize it? You kind of hear that in the last poem I read that The New Butterfly is at first almost unrecognizable. A lot of the poems

07:28 - and this collection play with these questions. and another poem that serves kind of as a, of an an example of will we recognize it. One thing becoming another is fear as absent mountain lion. When the poem begins, we hear from a speaker who is fearful because of a roaming mountain lion, which she cannot see. But by the end of the poem, the mountain lion becomes present, but within the speaker herself, Mrs.

08:02 - Fear as absent mountain lion at the trailhead, the hand lettered cardboard sign, large mountain lion sided here yesterday. At this time, he alert. This is my trail back of my hand, but my eyes race up the foothills home grasses and scrub odds of feline caution or boldness shift and shadow my own soft deliciousness weighed.

08:40 - I walk in a landscape of unanticipated pounce and claw risk crouching on the ridge here, the peak of every stopping countered By the steady pant of every perseverance. Purple fix on the wild, lavender and sage yellow skimm of finch and cottontail through chaparral crunch of free terrain, my slow loping muscle gambling sinew hunger set loose across the dust.

09:21 - So questions of faith and identity come into this conversation in the book around the tearing down in the building of another poem in the collection that looks at deconstruction and reconstruction of a thing with the Alicia Sea slug, which is a fascinating creature. And this poem offers a glimpse, into some of the, the faith themes that show up in the book. the epigraph of the poem is from the book of Ezekiel.

09:53 - I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies, your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. This is the Alicia Sea Slug things go sideways. The body opens the wrong doors. And lets, in bad company, popa pods that take over, then we carry it segments crippled with parasites. Stony growth, I think you mean it when you say you'll give me a new heart.

10:35 - I see evidence in stars in the sea slug that can detach its entire disease body and crawl away on orange porn antenna the head births a new form. Mangled sea stars and flatworms do this, but only the Alicia Sea slug routes a heart from just ahead. This is your prescription. You pry loose the, the cargo and craft fresh strands of light.

11:13 - When I unhook all the parts and struggle away, won't you come rebuild, tear down the years the locusts have eaten. Let the heavy consignment fall regenerate the glistening wholeness from only one piece. Let that piece be you. What kind of spiritual contradiction that the book considers is the negative way or the via negativa, which is a theology that asserts that the transcendent God is

11:50 - beyond human knowledge. So the idea Is, although we can know something about God through creation, God is ultimately unknowable. So even as we can enter into relationship with God, we approach an unknowing. I like looking to the natural world to find hints about how to advance along this path of darkness. and I've done that. I did it in my previous poetry collection, litany of flights.

12:19 - There are a couple poems in there and in butterfly nebula. there are several poems, that draw on this theme. Also. To me, spiritual darkness is a paradox. It may seem like nothing is happening and yet transformation is happening. It's there all along. very like a new moon we might miss in the darkness of the night sky. so the next poem I'd like to share with you is via New Moon.

12:52 - Why do I want the moon, which belongs to you? Why do I drive against the foothills like a maniac to moon hunt when it's gone missing? I don't understand what's happening to my physics. I might need to live in a tent for a month away from streetlights and other blazes. I might need a blade, need to cut my hair and nails to slimmest crescent and solve for white pleated wings of moth sprung hole from phases just

13:33 - to die for light. You've packed up the knot moon tonight, A hanging promise, your light will come go barefoot and the drought powdered dirt press hard against the hole of cocoon. The strongest sit in the dust unknowing, the strongest linger in the bind weight for faintest sliver emerge. So another kind of contradiction present in the book is found in the physical universe itself.

14:15 - I mentioned one example that a supernova, which is the death of a star, may result in the nebula, which may also then result in new stars. That paradoxical tension between death and new life is a key con contradiction that kind of flows throughout, the poems. It's found in the physical universe and in several faith traditions, however you name it, metamorphosis, resurrection, transformation.

14:43 - And our world and universe are full of these things in constant transition, which both science and faith observe. We see this pattern of regeneration in cycles in the sea, on the land and also in space. But typically in space, it's over vast distances and on a completely different, size scale and timescale. And sometimes I think that kind of distance helps us perceive things more clearly. A star system or a supernova

15:18 - or a nebula is just otherworldly enough, just vast enough, just strange enough, yet also just real enough for gr it to be a useful lens for our own realities. So as an example, Kepler observed a supernova in 1604. And today we can only observe the aftermath, the remnant of the supernova. And I love thinking about this in terms of the question of when that's the thing which has broken apart or changed, be it cosmic object

15:55 - or living being, when does it become a new thing, Mrs. Kepler's supernova remnant? Maybe the remnant tells the whole story. Maybe the shattering says the wanting. And we just can't see the we in its visible form, the unleashed dazzle of matter, not debris, but a new creation. What remains? Our senders come together burning through time and space complete, even

16:36 - as the fusion arrives and gnarls the universe and appears to be an expulsion from cell, the astronomers trace the cataclysmic losing of matter into space, not by not body, by body. And we know something about vast collapse that ignites expansion even here, even in the fragile mass of the animal heart, which must fisure in order to love.

Faculti AI can make mistakes