The Chance of Home

Somewhere there must be where
no one wonders whether you belong...

So begins the title poem of this remarkable collection from a popular poet and scholar of mysticism.
These poems remind us that "home" shapes us, not as a particular place; home is a way of being in this world, for us and for the creatures with whom we share it. It finds expression in the inner light that carries us through dark seasons and in what inspires us to risk life in the face of death. Home comes to us in the unexpected glimpses we sometimes have of a wholeness resonant enough to hold us amid fragments. Many of these poems come from a long looking at the familiar and the ordinary, a patient listening for traces of a beauty that might still save us-in the rhythms of a street musician plying his trade in a Lisbon subway, the radiance of birdsong interrupting the night's last hour, and the tolling of an old temple bell that "still sings in the silences." They ponder the resilience that lies at the heart of the natural world, as well as in our desire to thrive amid the distractions that pressure us in our lives. In an over-saturated age like ours, they invite us to linger at the edges of silence, and wonder what it means that we are not made for reason alone, but "for what song can bring of solace and delight."

Mark S. Burrows is a professor or religion and literature, a scholar of medieval Christianity, and a poet. He has taught in several graduate theological schools in the United States and Germany, and is widely recognized for his work in spirituality, theology, and the arts. Burrows has translated contemporary German poet, including Ranier Maria Rilke, Iranian-German SAID, and German-Jewish poet Hilde Domin. Currently Series Editor for Paraclete Poetry and Mount Tabor Books, he also serves as poetry editor for the journals Spiritus and ARTS. He lives in Bochum, Germany, where he is on the faculty of the University of Applied Science.

These poems remind us that "home" is a way of being in this world. It finds expression in the inner light that carries us through dark seasons and in what inspires us to risk life in the face of death. Many of these poems come from a long looking at the familiar and the ordinary, a patient listening for traces of a beauty that might still save us. They ponder the resilience that lies at the heart of the natural world, as well as in our desire to thrive amid the distractions that pressure us in our lives. In an over-saturated age like ours, they invite us to linger at the edges of silence, and wonder what it means that we are not made for reason alone, but "for what song can bring of solace and delight." "Call these meditative poems Burrows' 'Yes' to the given world, his ongoing record of those instances of connectedness when we are at 'home' in what Pessoa called 'the astonishing reality of things...'" -Robert Cording, poet and author of Walking with Ruskin and Only So Far "Mark S. Burrows' poems offer the reader both invitation and gift - when you say yes, the treasures lay themselves out like a banquet for the heart." -Christine Valters Paintner, Online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts and author of The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women