My Favorite Sky by Gerry Grubbs

In his new book, My Favorite Sky, Gerry Grubbs continues to practice his ‘experiencial poetics’writing from his experience in the present moment, or now. Now as the merging point between the timeless and time. The portal that opens us to understanding. It’s the moment Basho was awakened to his awareness. The moment the frog splashed into the ancient pond. It’s the moment Whitman discovered that awareness was the source of all poetry. He called it ‘original energy’. He called it inception, perfection, heaven and hell. An awareness he experienced as “urge urge urge.” An Awareness that lead him to discover that “death isn’t what you think” and it is “luckier.” Everyone gets lucky when present to this moment.

This new book is about the freedom arising from being present with your experience now. That is the moment of liberation. No longer bound by your past or your ordinary self. You become free to simply be.

Each poem seems to nudge you to awaken to awareness. Each word encourages you to exam your ideas and beliefs, your alibis and judgments, to find out where they are holding you back, denying you the freedom which is your birthright.

These poems challenge us, to awaken to awareness, to examine our lives, to follow beauty and learn what beauty longs to let us know. They challenge us to know with clarity and certainty what will make us free and in so doing to become free, to turn ourselves over to what will make us free. A challenge Whitman passes on to us confused with our identity.  A challenge to lean into reality, into life, with all our senses. Sight smell touch movement balance taste talk temperature hearing thought ego.

The present moment is a lemniscate eternally turning back on itself. Opening time when it turns back on itself. Causing time to flower which returns again and again. And you can feel the fragrance of the infinite when you stop and become aware of what is present in the moment. That fragrance is alive in each of these poems.