Weak Devotions

      poems

      Copyright © 2011 Luke Hankins. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf & Stock

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-61097-725-8

      eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-6980-3

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Cover art by Makoto Fujimura (in situ photograph; azurite, malachite, and vermillion on kumohada taken by the artist in the studio while wet). Reproduced by permission of the artist. www.makotofujimura.com

      Acknowledgments

      I am grateful to the editors of the following publications, in which the listed poems originally appeared, sometimes in earlier versions:

       American Literary Review: “A Shape With Forty Wings”

       Asheville Poetry Review: “Earthly Kingdom”

       Connotation Press: An Online Artifact: “Choirmaster,” “Conductor’s Prayer,” “Amateur’s Prayer,” “The Old Preacher Prays,” and “Herald”

       The Cortland Review: “Please Follow the Instructions”

       The Hampden–Sydney Poetry Review: “I Shocked the Hills” and “Lament”

       Marginalia: “The Fact”

       The Other Journal: “Blood” and “Hedonist’s Prayer”

       Poetry East: “Sojourner’s Prayer” and “Weak Devotions”

       Ruminate: “Newspaper Photo”

       Southern Poetry Review: “Floccinaucinihilipilification”

       Sow’s Ear Poetry Review: “Patient’s Prayer”

       Verse Libre Quarterly (now defunct): “Wisteria”

      “Weak Devotions” also appeared as a reprint on the blog of the National Public Radio radio program Being (http://onbeing.org).

      “Blood” also appeared as a reprint in the anthology Remembering the Future: Essays, Interviews, and Poetry at the Intersections of Theology and Culture (Cascade Books, 2009).

      “Choirmaster” and “Failure” were broadcast on the radio program The Poet’s Weave on WFIU Public Radio in Bloomington, Indiana, and the program is archived online at http://indianapublicmedia.org/poetsweave/.

      Personal Thanks

      For their invaluable assistance in revising these poems and this collection, and for their great dedication of time and energy, my enduring gratitude to Keith Flynn, Stephen Haven, Elizabeth Hoover, Maurice Manning, Ashley Anna McHugh, and Chad Prevost. For their guidance and encouragement, I acknowledge my teachers: JoLynn Goffin, Chad Prevost, and Maurice Manning. My love to my parents and siblings, who have always offered support and enthusiasm: my father, Carl Hankins; my mother, Laura Hankins–Rand; my sisters, Janna Wardle and Carly Borders; and my brother, Joey Hankins.

      Soli Deo gloria.

       . . .We be cast low; for why? the sportfull love

      of our great Maker (like as mothers dear

      in pleasance from them do their children shove

      that back again they may recoyl more near)

      shoves of our soules a while, the more them to endear.

      —Henry More, “The Preexistency of the Soul”

      For, if I imp my wing on thine,

      Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

      —George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

      We are created by being destroyed.

      —Franz Wright, “Letter”

      I.

      Earthly Kingdom

      I.

      Creekmuck crawfish,

      shitstenched mudbugs

      swarming in the murk—

      we set raw meat on nets

      to see how many we could catch,

      to cup

      the smallest crayspawn in our palms,

      wriggling open then shut.

      Of Louisiana’s armored animals—

      armadillo, rolypoly,

      alligator snapping turtle—

      of all shellcased hiders, carapace-duckers,

      crawfish were the ones with claws,

      and we’d allow the smaller ones

      to pinch us and dangle from our skin.

      And there were, of course, those armored falcons

      diving at us in our dreams,

      native ravagers sent in our sleep

      to wake us to the fear of death.

      II.

      Bright cardinal,

      red-feathered raptor

      on the berried branch,

      little dinosaur,

      you cock your crested head

      to see—

      you plunge your thorn-like beak.

      ~

      Coiled spring, you freeze

      then chirp and leap,

      hopping on your wings through air.

      God’s little toy,

      mesozoic wind-up—

      what a pragmatic bit

      of precise mechanical joy.

      III.

      Whitemouthed death living among us,

      black length of muscle,

      fanged wrangler with the mud,

      slick pondswimmer, streamwanderer,

      watermoccassin—

      I watched my father slice a shovel through you

      just below the skull—

      death, thou shalt die, I had read—

      and yet

      when I remembered you in dreams, the way you wrung yourself

      like a piece of rope that thought it was a hand, when I watched

      that grasping over and again I knew that if even death itself

      was doomed to die certainly I could not hope to escape.

      IV.

      On Good Friday