Iris Miller

Iris Miller

Angels Flying Backwards

From the book:

Flying to Leningrad on a Winter Night

I face the void with Valium

and a needlepoint of daisies.

Squeezed into a window seat,

suspended between the black Atlantic

and the sky with its stars

that have already burned out,

I pull white yarn through canvas

making petals one by one.

I look for signs.

Orion skims the wing

of the plane like a cosmic benediction.

Across the aisle - two nuns

in traditional garb. I'm not

religious, but we wouldn't crash

with them aboard, would we?

I focus on bringing daisies

into being, stars of the earth strewn

across the sky by my own hand.

My friend, playing solitaire

with tiny magnetic cards, is bored

with my petals. She'd like

me to make a center for a change.

I switch to yellow yarn,

feel calmer. The petals flying      

off in every direction

will finally have something

to hold onto.

Iris Miller has explored imagery as visual artist, art teacher to city children, art therapist, and shamanic practitioner, as well as through poetry. She believes in the power of the image to teach and to heal. As Patricia Ann Lothrop, she was raised in Reading, Massachusetts and earned degrees from Middlebury College and Cornell University. She has lived in Rochester, New York for many years, and spends summers on Monhegan Island in Maine.

Angels Flying Backwards

is a 28 page hand-stitched chapbook - $10.00.

Release date 10/11/11

TO ORDER:

To order through mail click here.     

ON-LINE                                        

From the US      

From Canada      

From Other Countries