Canticle of the Night Path. Jennifer Atkinson

Canticle of More Wishes

       Canticle of the Naked Magdalene in Exile

       Canticle of the Night Path

       Canticle of the Orchard Owl

       Canticle on Palm Sunday

       Canticle of the Penitent Magdalene

       Canticle for the Pilgrimage to Magdalene’s Grotto

       Canticle of the Pine in Her Garden

       Canticle of Prayer Beads

       Canticle of Quiets

       Canticle of Rhymes

       Canticle of the Rushes:

       from The Parables of Mary Magdalene

       Canticle of St. Martha and the Dragon

       Canticle with Secret

       Canticle with Shrapnel and Manna

       Canticle of the Sleeping Child:

       from The Parables of Mary Magdalene

       Canticle of Slippage

       Canticle of the Solution Cave

       Canticle for the Sound

       Canticle of Stone

       Canticle of the Treasure Ship:

       from The Parables of Mary Magdalene

       Canticle of the White Rose

       Canticle of the Wolf

       Canticle of Zed

       Notes

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Free Verse Editions

      Canticle of A

      An almanac of almost and almonds, amended accounts, always askance, aslant—ah!—as chance would have it;

      An atlas, at last, of aphorism and aftermath, of master, ochre, mask, and umber, all had for an anaphoric song;

      An archive of lives and ghosts, haloed and half-cocked; a canticle of alpha to zed, apple to zebra, aardvark to zarf;

      A gospel of asters, of ask her, of azure assurance not gone askew, an adder, an attar of roses and ashes;

      A Webster’s of wishes, wordlists, of what ifs and why nots, wine cups kept ever brim full.

      Canticle of Assisi Rain

      An olive branch threaded with clear beads of rain.

      The whole tree swagged with garlands of rain.

      Fog, the same fog cowl Chiara wore,

      That scarved her hair and shoulders, before, after, during the rain.

      Pecking for crumbs in the gravel, fledglings

      Hunch up and soften like bread in the rain.

      The cypresses nod, a solemn quorum of elders,

      A jury to rule on the rights of rain.

      The lines of the city are washed away or left undrawn—

      The road, wall, far side of the garden—forgotten, dissolved in the rain.

      Canticle of Before

      It has begun before it begins—with a foretaste, a bead of nectar, an unshed tear, glassine, brimming with impulse.

      And before the bead: wind, before the wind: cold, before the cold: dark—an absence presence set aside, a hollow to harbor power.

      And before the hollow: the hollowed, the whole, the indivisible one.

      And before the one, the perfect zero: the knife that proves it flawless by flawing it.

      And who holds the knife, subtle and sharp, the probe that pierces and then withdraws, leaving a single glistening drop?

      Canticle of the Bitter Almond Tree

      Is this spring—this gray-green net that snags the birds, this pruning hook—

      Come now at last to wrest the almonds from their stupor?

      Doubt is not irreversible, Love. Take care.

      Without first the cold, the rehearsal of snow on the wet branches,

      There are no blossoms or fruit—fruit kept for its hard pit, the flesh is cut away.

      Almonds are just as much almonds at root, in leaf, as ash, as they are in blossom.

      Will the feral cat, kinked tail twitching, a bird in her mouth,

      Set it down to lap a dish of warm milk?

      Canticle of Blue

      Besides the scatter-light of empty sky, Tiepolo or Martin, domed illusion;

      Besides the ocean’s scribbled-on slate, weather’s surface tricks and gambits;

      Besides the beyond, the yonder, the shangri-la earth as seen from the moon;

      Besides the wing, the crystal, the petal, the scale;

      Beneath