At the Edgelessness of Light

Book excerpt: These poems express my 75 years of experiencing the world as a child, adult, teacher, artist, son, father, husband, lover, adventurer: a poet. I have spoken with stones, clouds, bugs, ghosts, a grandson, Native American elders, a mother and father, students, ex-wife, and friends in Greece, Japan, Yemen, Santa Fe, and my birthplace, Tacoma, Washington. I care about what and how I write while letting the poems speak on their own, in their own time. A poem may come in a meeting with Natalie Goldberg, David Whyte, Joan Logghe, Morgan Farley, Sharon Olds, a friend in a local writing group, at a stoplight, on the Hopi Reservation, in the middle of the night in my home, with a group of artists at the Congo River, at Coole Lake in Ireland with my daughter, on a beach in Leros, in the Dodecanese, in India, or in a classroom of children in Seoul, Korea. Each time, place, thing, or person is sacred. And what does the edgelessness of light mean? It means that place where love and light are revealed: a vibrant, gentle, lonely place where the tides of feeling and understanding move in and out with constant illumination and exposure of what is important in the moment before fading, leaving the edgeless shadow of a poem. Writing a poem is my way of blooming, bearing fruit, decaying and returning to that edgelessness of life with a word of praise. I try to share a revelation as I have glimpsed it. When something I have written is felt by you, that for me is a blessing. JAMES McGRATH, poet, visual artist and teacher is known for his narrative poetry in the PBS American Indian Artist Series in the 1970s. He has published poetry in 12 anthologies including "Dakotah Territory," "Passager," "Inside Grief," "In Cabin Six," and "Mercy of Tides," among others. McGrath was poet-artist-in-residence with Arts America in Yemen, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of the Congo in the 1990s and his 50 year retrospective as artist was held at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco in 2002. He lives in La Cieneguilla, Santa Fe, New Mexico.