Duet for Wings and Earth — Martin

In this meditative season of Advent, I am often seeking words and music to help carry my thoughts back through the centuries to the miracle of Christ’s incarnation. Every year I go back to past favourites; every year I discover new treasures.

For this year I have added to my celebrations Duet for Wings and Earth, a beautiful book of poetry by Barbara Colebrook Peace. The genesis of this collection was an invitation to write poems for performance at a Christmas concert, which was renewed annually. The poems are written from varying perspectives — that of God, of Mary, of Joseph, of a donkey, sheep, magi, moon and even the inn of Bethlehem.

“Bethlehem: the place where God
tore himself from himself”

Reading one or two individual poems, will only hint at the experience of dwelling within Duet for Wings and Earth. This is a book for meditation — meditation on the profound thoughts of the poet, and on the deep significance of all we already know of this story that comes flooding back into our minds as we read. This book is a perfect reminder of why God selected poetry as the medium for much of his communication with man.

“I tasted a new song on my tongue;
I wanted to run and dance and shout!
The day the angel came and I said Yes —
How could I know what it was?”

I learned of Barbara’s poetry this past June, when Duet for Wings and Earth shared the honour, with my own book Poiema, as joint category winners at the Canadian Christian Writing Awards. I am indeed honoured to be acknowledged along side such a fine book.

Read the review Violet Nesdoly posted of this book on this blog on November 25th. I suggest you should get a copy for your Advent meditations. Visit www.barbaracolebrookpeace.ca Duet for Wings and Earth is published by Sono Nis Press.

D.S. Martin is Music Critic for Christian Week. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca