‘What sweet echo is the dawn’s birdsong/ Through the tunnel of my fear,’ are the first two lines of this book of poetry. The poem then extols the beauties of the bird’s song, until it asks, ‘But where is my song? / Sectioned . . ./ Chained . . ./ I see the oxygen symbol upon the door . . .’ As the book continues with several more poems, the reader feels that this kind of contrast encapsulates the general and specific movements of Dr. McAuley’s poetry, from an optimistic view of the world to a gloomier outlook due to physical illness and infirmity, and then back to a brighter view during and after recovery.
For instance, the second poem compares the soul to a currently dormant volcano, darkened on the outside by previous sinful activity – probably wrath or anger at her illness, which seems a matter of fate to her. She then moves toward faithful praise by the end of the poem, possibly because of her experience of recovery from physical illness into a healthier condition. Here, the reader perceives a specific moment of dark doubt, despair, and bitterness, which evolves into a feeling of bright belief, hope and love. By the end of the book, readers marvel at the poet’s ability to capture such moments and feelings in words, as they also realise that the book is about the spiritual journey of a Christian who seeks meaning in the seeming trials encountered during a lifetime, like a dreamer seeking consolation during her wakeful disappointments.
Some poems here dance from death to life, as from the Cross during Lent in Spring, to that inevitable Easter Sunday, the prime example of ‘Love earthed in humility.’ Another looks upon the face of the Redeemer on the Cross to see the speaker’s own face reflected there. Some honour and uphold Jesus’s mother Mary as the mightiest female example of the kind of virtue the speaker attempts to maintain throughout, or at least retrieve after, her sufferings and other experiences of human limitations.
The speaker-poet’s physical infirmities become a metaphor for the spiritual illnesses that ‘flesh is heir to’ along life’s earthen road to eternity—where, as she affirms, she ‘is not going to die,’ she ‘will not die.’ The miracles (consolations?) in this book occur when that eternal reality shines through during epiphanic transitions into good health and well-being, on either or both spiritual and physical levels.
While the beginning of a first reading of this book could feel a bit like a ride on a mountain road with a lot of interesting dips in it, the reader is also enjoying the poems’ engagingly lyrical qualities as the larger metaphorical picture becomes clearer. All this encourages that second reading (or more) which will enrich the reader’s overall understanding of it. For those drawn to faith stories, to well-crafted poetry as ‘distilled experience’, and to a writer sensitive enough to record them, this book is a pleasure to read.
