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Beyond All Bearing
Susan Delaney Spear
Beyond All Bearing
Copyright © 2018 Susan Delaney Spear. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3740-7
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3741-4
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3742-1
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
For Bruce,
Emily, Vanessa,
& Peter—
Always
Illustrations
“Concentric Moon” by Patricia Russell
The eponymous poem “Beyond All Bearing” was written in response to the pencil sketch “Concentric Moon” by Patricia Russell
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges with gratitude the following publications which first published many of these poems, some in earlier iterations.
823 on High: “Wild Traveler,” “Easter Lament,” and “Aftermath of a Miracle”
Academic Questions: “String Theory,” “Royal Revenge,” and “A Word”
Angle: “Turning,” and “Season Tickets”
Anglican Theological Review: “Invocation in Ordinary Time”
The Christian Century: “Wind and Flame”
Commonweal: “Emmaus”
Dappled Things: “After the Interment,” “Through the Window,” and “. . . Yet Not Consumed. . . ”
Don’t Just Sit There: “Faces of the Enemy,” “Twilight,” “Old Ralph,” and “Ode to Twins”
eVerse Radio: “Meteor,” “Honeysuckle,” “Actuary Tables,” “Tender”
The Lyric: “Summer’s End,” and “The Lovers’ Knot”
FUNGI Magazine: “Pricey Recipe”
Measure: “Behind the Wheel”
Mezzo Cammin: “Lilac Gowns,” “Priorities,” “A Matter of Participles,” and “Rattled”
The Nervous Breakdown: “Crescent Glow”
Peacock Journal: “Angles,” “Occupied,” “Vespers,” and “Blue Irises”
The Raintown Review: “Fool,” and “Salt Water”
Relief: “Rainlight”
The Rocky Mountain Anthology: “Epistle”
The Rotary Dial: “Forty Julys”
Verse Wisconsin: “Defying Nature”
Women’s Voices for Change: “Turning” (reprint from Angle) and “Paper Whites/December”
“The Lovers’ Knot” won Honorable Mention in the Denver Women’s Press Club Unknown Writers’ Contest in the spring of 2010.
“Like the Wedding Supper of the Lamb” was a finalist in the 2016 String Poet contest.
PROLOGUE
An Invocation in Ordinary Time
Sing, Muse,
in common time
on the upbeat
of the sun
Cry, morning’s
mourning dove
Chant, mossy
onyx rocks
Seek, osprey,
swoop and prey
Fling, red-
winged blackbird,
melodies
between the green
Squeak, smooth
pinewood floors
Crumble, loaf
of humble grain
Buoy my heart,
watered wine
Crash, waves,
erase my traces
Croak, frogs
an evensong
Sink, ancient
orange one
into the blue,
blackening sea
Come, Holy
Ghost, hum
in common places
Prove to me
your extraord-
inary graces.
Chores
I ran down Belmar Street to cross the highway
all by myself. This was a big girl mission.
I held the note you wrote up for the clerk.
Coins clattered. She read, she clicked her tongue,
dilly-dallied for a minute—stalled,
then
