All the poems in this book have something to contribute to the theme of its title, Clay Wings. The narratives of our lives are grounded in the earth, to life as it is and to things as they are. There is much to celebrate about the natural and social world in which we live and about its enfolding web of connections; there is also much to remind us of limitation, brokenness, failure, fragility, finitude, insecurity, neglect, pain, tragedy, and the unavoidability of loss in relation to the world and to each other. Our feet are set in the earth, in clay. Yet, human life has the potential for more than this; our responses to living carry the possibility of self-transcendence and transformation Some of the poems speak of the earth and our quality as clay, others of the more that we can know that enables us to fly, and some include both possibilities, either explicitly or implicitly. They all come out of personal experience, yet experience that is accessible to other people. There are poems that try to capture the essence of an intensely felt present moment and others that relate to life as an extended narrative over time. Some have qualities of both, a present that seems to expand towards limitless horizons, and an extended experience of life that folds into an encapsulated moment of recognition. In sharing these poems, my hope is that readers will have an enhanced experience of the exquisiteness of their own being in the world, their own stories and their own sense of living with clay wings. (extracts from the Preface)
