Dominion

from the upcoming revised collection:
An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World

Though it took patience, perseverance, and an expanse of years to finally do right by it, I just finished editing the revised edition of a poetry collection entitled An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World. 

Evoking things invisible to others has always been part of a poet's vocation. This responsibility could make you crazy or wise, and even getting it right is no guarantee of popular success. While prior to the invention of the printing press—and thousands of years before memory became stored in silicon chips—it was also a Bard's responsibility to serve as a custodian of a culture's history, including its legends and its storehouse of myths.

Sometimes these inherited soul stories—and how they'd been interpreted—needed to be called into question. Here, the Bard's job was to serve as a cultural critic. Or adding missing nuances could enable a myth to remain useful in addressing a culture’s current needs. Both required the skill of metaphorical thinking—and poets have always been the expert witnesses of the right side of the brain.

Anyhow, though all Bards are poets. not all poets are Bards. And in the spirit of the Bardic tradition, and the above responsibilities, I offer the first poem appearing in An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World. It begins with a line from Genesis. And the poem is entitled "Dominion."