63 Francis d’Assisi Gary Metras, 2008 Finishing Line Press P.O. Box 1626, Georgetown, KY 40324 Paper / 30 pgs $14.00 USD
A Feather on the Breath of God: A Review of Gary Metras‘ Poem (in chapbook form), Francis d’Assisi By Gram Davies
A
s I sit with my iPod, listening to the exquisite monotones of the compositions of Hildegard von Bingen and reading this poem about the life of Saint Francis, I cannot help but wonder if its author would give a wry smile to see me this way? There is something holy in the fusing of the lovely with the necessary. What is vital and what is breathtaking become one.
Music: the ultimate ephemera. That which exists as a written score, an unplayed set of strings, a digital map in some device, is never music. Only in the moment of living knowledge, as the mind perceives, does it become. So, too, with poetry. The language in this work by Metras is fittingly simple, with a succinctness bourn by vaguely archaic phrases. The writer seems moved by his subject, heeding the solemnity of his paragon, keeping to what is necessary.
“…the young man built a stone chapel in the wilderness of the Umbrian Plain to pray and purge himself,
There is power in the narrative itself. Great effort is apparent in this austerity, but Metras bears it well, and like those who work hard in tiny shacks that serve as churches, there is something strangely inspiring in this lack of embellishment, almost shaming us as readers in our relative opulence.
“The monk transcribed the songs. The people tell others of that fearlessness who tell others until young men who want to believe arrive.”
to contain that other wilderness, that doubt within those short walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . enough to watch the lives of animals, enough to hear God in birdsong.”
―Weightless‖ Dallas J. Bryant 2009