Michael McIrvin - In the Space ...

Wyoming poet Michael McIrvin makes holy the simple act of existence, shows us that daily life is perhaps quite miraculous. His poem “In the Space …” revels in the divinity of matter and moments, of the passage of life through spaces. “A reviewer once said of my poems that they focus intensely on the ‘moments where perception and metaphysics intersect,'” Michael informed The Dewdrop, continuing, “More accurately, perhaps, the poem I am sending for your consideration is an exploration of life itself as metaphysical.”

In the Space …

we move through,
cathedral of emptiness,
we build a shifting shrine
of the molecules we exude,
pieces of our shadow,
the softest register
of our voice. Dream
winds. Mind shadows.
Ten million things unsaid.
The world contributes
to the altar, the choir,
the vestry: poems, songs,
a perfect blue glimpsed
through the trees.
Birds tithe feathers,
children the fine timbre
of child laughter, lovers
their mingled scent.
Our mourning and memories,
both legion, hover
in the assembled vacancy
as sacrament.

Michael McIrvin

Michael McIrvin taught writing for many years and now writes full time from the high plains of Wyoming. He is the author of several poetry collections, including Optimism Blues: Poems Selected and New (2003, 2019) and Hearing Voices (Fearful Symmetry, 2020). His most recent novel is The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time (2009, 2019) and he is currently writing a novel about a semi-feral boy.