Fine Matter

Fine Matter

Philip Thatcher’s poetry lives and breaths in the moment, in its passages through elemental places alive with forces that connect to what is within ourselves, stirring just beneath the surface, as well as to the far cosmos. Thatcher’s verse can curve like a river, with rhythmic word recurrence unfolding through narratives of sentient surprise. -Fred Dennehy

From encounters with nature to addressing political events, from tender tales of parenting to meeting clear-eyed what it is to age, these poems come to grips with life in this time. Engaging with the first nations story, facing history and the stars and life’s thresholds, the poetry speaks of what it is to be human, whether as “I, the witness” or as a “wind in love with earth… that will want no final words.”

Borne on the first sharp
rush of Easter breath
can I speak only
words about creation?

Or can I start
to stammer water to wine
wine into warm
living blood?

About the Author

Philip Thatcher is the author of The Raven Trilogy. Born in Reno, Nevada, he lives in North Vancouver, taught English, history and drama for many years in the Vancouver Waldorf High School and worked as an adult educator at the West Coast institute for Studies in Anthroposophy.