Megan Willome looks for the sacred and the mystery in everyday life
It’s been some time since I did, but I like to hike a natural area 40 miles west of St. Louis. It’s officially named Shaw’s Nature Reserve and is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden, but locals still refer to it by its original name—the Arboretum. It opened to the public almost a century ago in 1925, and it’s gradually grown and expanded over the years. It’s more than 2,400 acres encompass prairie, woodlands, river bottoms, hills, and trails meandering all over.
When I go, it’s usually during the off-peak times during the week; the Arboretum gets busier on weekends. I follow the Lookout Trail, walk past the trail house and find my way on a side bath. Down to the trail that leads to the Meramec River. It’s a beautiful hike at any time of the year, but my favorite time is late fall or early winter (snakes in hibernation). When you reach the gravel bar on the river, you can find a place to sit and listen—to the river rushing by, the cows on the bluff across the river, and, most of all, the silence. You listen to that silence, and you realize you’ve walked into something sacred.
In her new poetry collection, Love & other Mysteries, Megan Willome, has gone into a similar silence and found a similar sacredness. Hers is a bit more structured than my own meandering hikes, but we both arrive at a similar place.
She, too, is attracted to the sacredness of the wild; she discovers it at national parks like Big Bend and Rocky Mountain and natural areas like Lost Maples and Enchanted Rock, both in Texas. But Willome doesn’t limit herself to nature; she also finds the sacred atop Rockefeller Center in New York, a festive celebration in her hometown, cleaning a bathroom, and an actual newspaper headline (“Man Steals Heart, No Charges Filed”).
Willome anchors the collection centered on what she calls eight songs, each inspired by a chapter in the Song of Solomon, the great love song of the Bible. She says the collection reads something like saying the rosary (Willome is Catholic); not being Catholic, I discovered that I could read and enjoy the poems as simply beautiful, sometimes startling, and occasionally provocative works. The collection’s 48 poems are organized into four “mysteries”: joyful mysteries, luminous mysteries, sorrowful mysteries, and glorious mysteries.
A few of the poems also underscore that Willome is a native Texan and proud of it. When one of those famous Texas storms is coming, she assumes her Texas voice, not to mention her Texas attitude, as she describes what happens when “all hail breaks loose.”
Texas Squall
Lord knows a storm’s gotta break sometime.
It knows it’s needed
when sorrows
can’t cloud up one moment more
and you set there on the porch
prayin you at least get some rain
outta this storm
dang it
cuz so far it’s just lightnin
lightin up the sky
looks like the trees are lyin to you
till all hail breaks loose
like someone’s hurlin
baseballs golf balls grapefruit oranges
every size of round right at you.
Next mornin
live oak limbs litter streets
car windows all busted out
skylights broken
you got threshed but good and all
anyone can talk about is how that pollen’s gone.
Clean gone.
C’mon out, y’all
The poem describes a violence, a wildness in nature, something you ignore at your peril. But it will pass. Willome loves these storms; they, too, even with their destruction, are part of the sacredness of life and the mystery of life. The poem falls in the group of “luminous mysteries.”
Megan Willome
Willome previously published Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form, Reading the Yellow Wall-Paper Graphic Novel (with additional readings and discussion questions), The Joy of Poetry, and a new edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, with a history, poetry, and prompts. She’s been an editor at Tweetspeak Poetry as well as a writer for several magazines, including Rock & Vine, WACOAN Magazine, and Magnolia Journal. She’s an ardent cyclist and tea drinker (although I’m not sure which one she’s more ardent about). She lives with her family in the Hill Country of central Texas.
We can go on our hikes, or take shelter from storms, and find the mystery and the sacred in both. And it’s there for us to discover. Sing that song and walk that trail, Willome says. And read these poems of Love & other Mysteries. That mystery, that sacredness, is there, waiting.
Related:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – and Megan Willome.
Crow Stories: Rainbow Crow by Megan Willome and Hasani Browne.
The Joy of Poetry by Megan Willome.
Photo by Tambako the Jaguar, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
- Poets and Poems: Claude Wilkinson and “Soon Done with the Crosses” - December 10, 2024
- Poets and Poems: Megan Willome and “Love and other Mysteries” - December 5, 2024
- Poets and Poems: Karla Van Vliet and Asemic Writing, Poetry - December 3, 2024
Megan Willome says
Glynn, this is so heartfelt, and my collection is all about heart. Thanks for reading it with such love and attention.
Sandra L King says
Oh… dear Megan! I’m gonna need this!
Megan Willome says
Thank you, Sandy!
I’ve been working on this either all year or for ten years–take your pick!
Bethany R. says
Glynn, thank you for this. I’m relieved you are most likely to visit that trail when the snakes hibernate.
Megan, what a great line, “looks like the trees are lyin to you.” So cool that you’ve organized the collection into different types of mysteries. Congratulations on your new book!
Megan Willome says
Thank you, Bethany! I like that one too.
It took me a while to figure out my sections, but once I settled on the Mysteries, everything fell into place.
Katie Spivey Brewster says
Glynn,
Love, love, love this post:)
Love, love, love these lines in Texas Squall:
“every size of round right at you”
“you got threshed but good and all”
Well, who am I kidding? I LOVE the whole poem, dang it!;)
Megan has done it again – shared the joy, the mysteries, and more:)
Thanks for sharing the beauty and love, Glynn.
Gratefully,
Katie
Megan Willome says
Thank you, Katie!
That one line really needed the word “threshed.”