Poems of the Spirit – Sometimes a Glimpse
by Alan Harris
128 Poems ~ 137 pages
Price: $9.99
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9798270567682
To Order: Amazon.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The poems in this book glimpse the Spirit, the divine essence within all life, from many angles, with reverence, relevance, and original language. While not following any particular religion or denomination, these insights may be appreciated by any spiritual seeker.
Featured themes along with titles include: mysticism (“April of the Spirit”), death and after (“Safe”), meditations (“Seed Thoughts”), and prayers (“Prayer of Being”).
Other topics and sample titles are love (“Analogies for Love”), adversity (“Sharing Copedom”), doubt (“Night Thoughts”), the inner life (“Innerness”), grief (“Griefs That Stay”), friendship (“Friendlight”), spiritual opening (“Seeking until Found”), Christmas (“Yuletide’s Deepest Bell”), and suffering (“Pain and Promise”).
Ten poems in the set “Echoes of the Decalogue” interpret and expand on the meanings of the Ten Commandments.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
As a person of faith, I have long believed that poetry is tailored for expressing faith-ideas. After all, the Bible is approximately one-third poetry. Poetry trains the eye to look for and find God in life’s ordinary things. These lines reach deep within my soul, “How warmly a candle lights up / in blackmost recesses of night. / How grieving and torment give way / to palpable peace in the heart.” What stands out in Alan Harris’ collection is its overall appeal. Anyone who is sensitive to the natural world, and its possibilities of a world beyond will be nourished by Poems of the Spirit.
–Michael Escoubas, author, Ripples Into the Light: PhotoPoetry, with Vandana Bajikar
As a Native American, my people possess an abiding faith that the spirit-world is present in this life and in the afterlife. While my faith tradition is not specifically Christian these lines from Mr. Harris’ poem “Urges,” spoke to me as if from my ancestral tradition, “wild wind / blow me / safe into / all here // all here / let me / fly out on / wild wind.” No matter what your faith persuasion may be, Poems of the Spirit has a song waiting for you.
–Sharmagne Leland-St. John, author, Raga for George Harrison
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alan Harris was raised in an Illinois farming family and has had careers in high school English teaching, piano tuning, computer programming, systems analysis, and Web design, all in Chicago and suburbs. In retirement he and his wife Linda have resided in Tucson, Arizona since 2003.
Since college years in the 1960s he has been writing poems, essays, and short stories, all offered in his website “An Everywhere Oasis” at alharris.com, including 28 free printable PDF poetry books and a gallery of his photographic essays.
As a member and webmaster of the Illinois State Poetry Society he Web-published over 3,600 poems written by ISPS members from 2000 to 2024. His lifetime collection of 315 poems and 400 aphorisms, Noon Out of Nowhere: Complete Poems and Aphorisms, has recently been published and is available on Amazon.com.
FROM THE BOOK:
Angels of the Sunset
For Those with Open Hearts
Some lucky ones have claimed
to see and even hear an angel
or a host of them presiding in
resplendence over countrysides
or busy city neighborhoods.
Most angels seem to hover just where
bright meets dim, and rarely show
themselves to televisioned eyes
or eyes that scan stock markets
for the best bonanza yet.
Some people yearn lifelong to see
an angel near their morning porch
or, ill, pray earnest prayers
for healing angels who will
touch them and dispel disease.
Anyone who has a western sky
and something of an inner eye
may sometimes notice sunset angels
in their dance of shifting veils
above the darkening ground.
Concealed and yet revealed
in colors you can see between,
these angels bless in bigness
all whose ears are listening
and all with openness of heart.
So subtle are the wings of angels
that you may not realize
they’ve come and gone, except
that innerly remains a glowing
which seems as good as knowing.
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