Graces For The Wonder : Poems by rg cantalupo 1978-2023

Graces For The Wonder is an astonishing collection of rg cantalupo's award-winning poems from 1978-2023. It includes such poems as The Art of Poetry, Walking Water On Earth, Involving Residence, The God Box, and many other memorable and deeply-moving poems.

Cantalupo is not only a poet, but also a playwright, filmmaker, novelist, and director. His work has been published widely in literary journals in the United States, England, and Australia.

His books include The Light Where Shadows End, Kill Today, So Tomorrow Will Not Come, You Don't Know Me, Involving Residence, No Thanks, Walking Water On Earth, The Art of Naming, Graces For The Wonder, A Red-Starred Gold Flag Flutters In the Wind, The Last Strigoi, and The Endurance: Journey To Worlds End.

He served with the 25th Infantry Division as an RTO (radio operator), for an infantry company from 1968-69 and received three purple hearts and a Bronze Star with a Combat V for Valor Under Fire.

His books can be purchased through New World Publishers or the author at rgcantalupo@gmail. com

Igloo

Perhaps merely the idea of whiteness draws us,

the way the white lines, the fissures of ice, the

made structure itself disappears inside the silent

depths. Or perhaps the way the wind dies down

to a muffled growl as we slip inside the white

skin of bear, the belly of the moon; or the way

we are left then with only language, our voices

heard in this white dome of the cosmos, our

stories flickering in the fire; left with only these

shadows written on the walls of snow: Here the

trick of permanence, there the illusion of stilled

water, the gift of holding river and storm quiescent

in the rough texture of our hands. No day now.

No night. The vast turquoise sky not changing to

a black mask pricked with eyes. Out of the flames

gods come, spirits, ghosts bearing visions and old

battles. Out of the white nothing, we create the

living light, the universe of blood, a new world.

Walking Water on Earth

Each day I do this.

I open their mouths, lift

up their silent tongues,

and slide my foot inside

like a wordless prayer.

I do this as I've always done,

as my father did, as my brother

does, tying together the days

from here to there, from my

eight year-old red racers to my

olive-drab jungle boots

spattered with lives. I do this

famed or unknown, loved or

unwanted, whether I'm walking

in my garden or along the jetty.

I do, do and do, not stopping

till I'm done, holding my shoes

like tiny horses in my hands,

pulling their reins tight, and

then letting them go, letting

them take me where they will.

I do this without knowing,

unafraid that I cannot see

far ahead, perhaps only a

few steps--from here to the

kitchen, from here to the

door and out onto the

black rivers of the world,

walking water on Earth,

each day a parable of where

I've been.

When I Leave

I'll leave quietly

Like frost from a blade of grass.

I'll pack my words in my guitar case

beside letters from my brother and my son,

and walk toward the highway

searching for the path through my name.

One day when I'm gone,

my words will return to you.

You'll hear them calling

in the cricket's trill.

You'll hear them calling

walking home in the dark.