These poems interrogate the world seeking what can be found within its harshness to venerate those flashes of grace and beauty.

"The cover of the book is a painting, 'The Messenger,' by an artist friend, Peter McCaffrey. It spoke to me the first time I saw it. I felt it was deeply spiritual. Peter painted it during an artist residency in Ireland. When I asked about the inspiration, he told me it is an homage to Velasquez, a detail of the artist's painting of saints in the desert being fed by a crow descending from the sky. The poems in this collection speak of hope in difficult and trying times with the belief that poetry can ease the suffering, lift the spirit, feed the soul."

"Christine Higgins understands that her subject is as large, as unmanageable as an ocean.  She brings to it her faith and compassion. In one poem she tells us 'I will be present, responsive/to the soulful vibrations of this world.' And yes, she is responsive, movingly, persuasively, so.  These are earned, terribly moving, and yes, soulful poems as large as the heart that made them."

—Philip Schultz, winner, Pulitzer Prize, Luxury

Bringing the Good News

A mother comes to the brothers—
Colorado's largest growers of marijuana—
looking for a miracle.

Her little Charlotte
is suffering grand mal seizures:
once every twenty minutes,
or about 400 seizures a week.

When six-year old Charlotte
receives the tincture of cannabis.
There are no seizures in the first hour.
She uncurls from her fetal position.
Then she goes a whole day without seizing.
Then, it's two whole days.

Other families come
pleading for their loved ones—
epilepsy, cancer, MS, Parkinson's.
They've heard the good news.
They've seen the video of Charlotte
dancing around her kitchen.

Arrival

Mother has lost
her blank stare and Dad
looks healthy as if he just
finished mowing the lawn.
Grandmother greets me with tulips
and ginger ale in a jar.
Aunt Helen wears her Chinese
fan earrings, and Greg—
Greg has the same beatific smile.
He says, without the benefit of oxygen,
I told you so.
No gates to pass through,
pearly or otherwise,
no official greeter.
It's this big sun porch,
and you just arrive.