Charles C. Finn – författare

Addiction of one kind or another touches us all. Given its destructive course, it would seem an unequivocal curse to be lamented. The thrust of The Elixir of Air, however, is that it need not be. Addiction can in fact be a hidden blessing for what it forces us to face and change in our lives, for the spirit journey it rudely launches us on. Which is not to glamorize the searing pain experienced by addicts and their loved ones. Addiction''''s gathering force is such that only searing pain can stop us in our tracks long enough to make possible a life transformation. We are in the presence here of the great mystery of death required for rebirth. Addressing addiction brings us to holy ground.

Few things go deeper than relationships with parents, or are more complex. And as children become adults and their parents move inexorably towards decline and death, the complexity only deepens even as a primordial simplicity reemerges.

While the reflections in these poems are of course personal, they touch on things universal. Many besides me have struggled with ambivalence towards their parents, and all of us, unless the natural order is reversed, have to live through the fiery crucible of our parents dying.

Come learn of the man from whom I learned stability, integrity, roots; come learn of the woman who opened me to beauty, empathy, wings. Ponder in the process whence might have come your own grounding and soaring.