Beyond All Bearing. Susan Delaney Spear

Beyond All Bearing distills and illuminates moments in ordinary lives, in ordinary time, and renders them extraordinary. These poems turn the quotidian into the rhythm and the rhyme that is poetry, preserving them on the page. Some of these moments shimmer with the beauty of pansies and paperwhites out of season; some flicker with the grace of candles placed on a table at the end of a tragic day or the grace of a holy kiss; some hum with love for family, friends, and students; some hint at a longing for God; some speak without flinching of unspeakable tragedy. And yet, among the songs of loss and grief that pervade this collection, God enters «beautiful beyond all bearing.»