Marrow, Muscle, Flight

Marrow, Muscle, Flight chronicles the everyday infinite affections of a gay man interacting with his children, creating a home with and grieving the death of his partner, and finding again how "the fierce river in the heart begins to flow." These poems celebrate the sacrament of the body and chant the rituals of longing and loss; they explore how each life is imprinted with family secrets, the journey of forgiveness, the "long sigh of belonging," and hands that know each other by heart. Boelhower invites us to feel the "soft wind full of salt from the infinite sea," hear the songs in our "bones, hollow flutes for a symphony of luster," see "white gulls dance their feathered alleluias down wide aisles of jubilant dawn." These poems evoke the courage to "fling yourself open toward the horizon." Gary J. Boelhower, PhD is professor of theology and religious studies at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, where he teaches courses in ethics, thanatology, spirituality, and leadership. He is the co-founder of the Center for Spirituality and Leadership at Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.