Poet Craig Arnold

Like many of us I hadn't read Craig Arnold's poems until after the news of his disappearance in April on a remote Japanese island, where he was hiking alone to the Shintake volcano.  It is believed he fell near a steep ravine as he came down the mountain. His body has not yet been found.  (With him in the photo is his partner, Rebecca Lindenberg.)  

His voice is alive in his work, especially in the remarkable title poem of his last book, "Made Flesh," which spurs me to write better.  It is a poem of ecstasy, reminiscent of the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

Made Flesh

THAT day drew a broken tower

out of the tarot pack     a plume of flame

and over the wreck a vast flower

with ragged petals of soft white ash

that was once flesh and useless paper

blooming over the postcard-perfect blue

Of all the tiny figures falling

end over end     there were two

who had stepped up holding hands

to give themselves together to the air

A love that       sudden and certainly    I knew

I didn't share and didn't want to share

with anyone but you

                                      your sunlit demons

your cigarettes and fire escapes

your petals and grenades      your laugh

like the chime of wind in icicles

the chuckle of fire in ecstasy

of its own burning

                                  and at my fingertips

were ten digits  you had asked me

never to dial again

And then it seemed my whole head

the dot on this little i     would blow

like the puff of a dandelion

And then the seedpods of my eyes

split into tears      and I felt a swift

clutch at my throat      that was the root

of cruelty and tenderness worming its way in

YOU are the hummingbird that comes

a pure vibration    wings a blur

propeller-burring a million beats

to keep still     the world's littlest pivot

spinning the heaven's hemisphere

as a wineglass with a wet finger

laid on the rim to make it ring

Feathers a rainbow    how you reel

hovering over blossom     cheeks

tucked into the honeysuckle

to lap a single drop of nectar

onto your tongue       messenger-goddess

kicking a gold-dust of pollen

out of your winged heel

The slow promise of your approach

makes my throat thick     the joy gathers

deep in my spine       as if it were a snake

making a smooth wave of muscle

toward the taste of water