This Will Be a Sign

by Jeffrey Johnson

Overview

Consider the moments in this collection - a mother is buried, a son is born, Alaska melts - each event a signpost. Reflect on the signs of rest and restlessness, simplicity and complexity, life given and taken and throbbing. This is the way of faith. We watch for truth's brilliant appearance, and in the midst of our heartbreak-while-waiting, we pray. Jeffrey Johnson's poems listen to the angels, they sing the doxologies, they pay loving attention to life. They are prayers. They will help you feel the power of life. They will teach you to pray.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594980664
Publisher:	Fernwood Press
Publication date:	03/31/2020
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.24(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey L. Johnson has degrees from St. Olaf College, Yale Divinity School and Boston University. He has written two non-fiction books and edited Stars Shall Bend Their Voices: Poets' Favorite Hymns and Spiritual Songs, a collection of essays by noted poets on sacred music. He lives with his wife Kirsten in Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Pentecost 13

Night School 14

Vacation 15

Summer News 16

Nevertheless 17

Late Autumn 18

Forget Your People 19

Hostel Americans 20

August First 21

This Will Be a Sign 22

Eye Fish 23

Better Heartbreaks 24

Float Nights 26

Black Leather and Horse Flesh 27

Advice 28

Done with the Compass and Chart 29

Some Sacrifice 30

Crazy Horse 31

The Plague 32

Crepusculum 33

Sense of Direction 34

Exercises 35

Fever 36

A Natural History 37

All Aboard 38

Long Live the Weeds 39

Crepusculum II 40

Burial of the Gravedigger’s Mother 41

Morning in the Circus Camp 42

Evening Prayer 44

Sighting 46

Alaska Is Melting 47

Two Ways to Fly 48

Last Supper 49

Winter Break Blessing 50

Entertainment Tonight 51

One evening 52

Doxology 53

Anniversary 54

Exit Interview 55

Come With Me 56

Seek My Face 57

Reprise 58

Nicodemus 59

Hoop Dancing 60

Program 61

Without 62

Last Night’s Lament 63

Deck Party Dream 64

Easter Morning 65

Now I Lay Me Down 66

Black Wool Days 68

Late Feeding 70

Prelude 71

Sanctus 72

Night Fishing 73

A Voice in Ramah 74

Agnus Dei 75

ICU 76

Now and Forever 77

Taste and See 78

Hope This Helps 79

Time Please 80

Do Not Be Afraid 81

Mercies 82

Crossing 83

Breath of Fresh Air 84

I Thirst 85

Checkpoint 86

First Night 87

Late Sports News 88

Made in America 89

Stopover Town 90

Shirt and Tie 91

First Line Index 95

Editorial Reviews

“We’ve almost forgotten to sing the sun down”, says Jeffrey Johnson. He does not, however, forget. In his poems, sun crosses the horizon into night, a mother is buried, borders and thresholds are crossed, a son is born, Alaska melts, life is given and taken, throbbing. In all this activity, moments of attention and blessing shine out, crossing over into words where they are, briefly, held.

Margaret Gibson, author of Not Hearing the Wood Thrush and Connecticut Poet Laureate

These fine poems work two ways at once. There is the poem on the page, but also signaled is the contemplation that precedes the poem. My sense is the contemplative mode—never easy or settled—prepares the way for the poem. This is a book of faith, a faith that has wriggled its way to life in the world.

Maurice Manning, author of Railsplitter

Only someone looking for truth could reveal its brilliant appearance: “as out of a snow squall, / into a star-shot night.” These are emblematic poems, imagistic unities, with form and content in harmony, helping us to see how earth and heaven come together when “The green mother opens her arms to all of us . . .” “Checkpoint,” typical of the best in this collection, reminds us that all we may wish to declare, though inadequate for the authorities, is all we have for poetry. There is no better heartbreak than a poem that breaks your heart.

Mark Jarman, author of The Heronry

Jeffrey Johnson’s poems exists in a twilight world of rest and restlessness. They do not shy away from the complexities of a life of faith. They listen to angels, weary of their glory, but they still sing doxologies that praise “all who tried to make it, up and down / Main Street, with dreams that needed more traffic, / of a less familiar kind.” Rich, earnest and reverential, these poems pay loving attention to our lives on earth.

Jason Gray, author of Radiation King

Jeffrey Johnson’s poems draw us into intimate relationship with earthbound life—birth, childhood, parenting, aging and death. In vivid, painterly and euphonious language, they evoke the natural world and the spirit that dwells within and beyond all flesh. Quiet and melancholic, alert and attentive, some of them seem almost like prayers. They will help you notice—come into the presence and feel—the power of life, in all of its ordinariness and splendor. Reading this book can be experienced as a kind of prayer.

Richard Chess, author of Love Nailed to the Doorpost

From the Publisher