Three Poems from Annie Finch’s <em>Earth Days</em>

Detail from the cover of "Earth Days," poems from Annie Finch (courtesy Nirala Publications).

3 AUGUST 2023 • By Annie Finch

Annie Finch’s poetry is a pure tone that calls us home to the first impulse of poetry. We link to mystery. We lift off.

—Joy Harjo

Earth Days cover - by annie finch - the markaz review
Earth Days is available from Nirala Publications.

“Annie Finch’s spellbinding poems give voice to the earth-centered spirituality of our era.  Finch is a renowned poetry witch who skillfully draws on the secrets of poetic rhythm and craft to honor the sacredness of the natural world. Earth Days gathers her poems over five decades around the elements of fire (flame, sun, stars, heat, passion); air (moon, wind, light, wisdom); earth (mud, roots, mountain, tree, strength); water (ocean, river, rain, tears, heart); and matrix (intuition, mystery, ritual, spirit). Finch’s poems enchant the ear as well as the mind, combining her virtuosic use of poetic craft with a rhapsodic, transformative, and feminist postmodern sensibility.” —Nirala series

Annie Finch

Homebirth
For Vincent

It seemed as if a door came calling, in a voice as old as carols, telling lies as old as candles, in words that were all about some afternoons, lost on a child, that could have been simple but were lost, when I was just a child.

There was a day and then a dream that I went through, and a cathedral whose tall choir prayed a singing message through the nave until I heard a forest there (though far outside, the trees were bare)


The Door

It seemed as if a door came calling, in a voice as old as carols, telling lies as old as candles, in words that were all about some afternoons, lost on a child, that could have been simple but were lost, when I was just a child.

There was a day and then a dream that I went through, and a cathedral whose tall choir prayeda singing message through the nave until I heard a forest there (though far outside, the trees were bare)


Earth Goddess and Sky God

You haven’t formed me.  I’m a monster still. Then give me your body.  Give it to me in rain. Look up and fill me.  I am too dark to stain. You haven’t held me. I hold apart my will Spread dryness through me.  I have a night to fill in high heat-speckled waves, apart from where I will come down.  I have nothing to share with breath.  I will give it back.  There is one to kill, one to renew, and one to persuade to weep. My night holds everything except for sleep.

Annie Finch

Annie Finch Annie Finch is the author of seven books of poetry, including Earth Days: Poems, Chants, and Spells in Five Directions (Nirala), Eve and Calendars (both finalists for the National Poetry Series), and Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams (awarded the Sarasvati Award). Her other books include A Poet’s... Read more

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