Lit Blue Sky Falling by Meg Files

In Lit Blue Sky Falling, Meg Files is as precise a naturalist as Darwin, whose journey to the Galapagos she retraces in the splendid opening poems. Files’ verse is alive to the poignant changes since Darwin’s time. Tourists now wear “i love boobies” tee-shirts but are shocked to find real boobies dead on the trail—“survival of the fittest” in action, as Files dryly observes. The fate of the last Isla Pinta tortoise, who refuses to mate with a female from a subspecies, is “finally to crawl back alone / beneath the cradle of the earth. The end.” The volume closes movingly with a different kind of journey, one to the far north (Iceland) as Files grieves her father, who recently died. What she discovers is not only the fatalism inherent in the Norse sagas and its people, but also their reverence for earth’s beauty, what she gorgeously describes as the still presence to “green glory.”

–Cynthia Hogue

In these poems Meg Files expertly guides us on an exotic journey where on the outer landscape we’ll meet blue-footed boobies, eagle rays, elephant grass and Northern lights; but also on an inner exploration where we find fear, age, love and loss, and wisdom in abundance. These poems are rich with sharply observed details and delicately captured emotion. “Lit Blue Sky” is a terrific trip.

–Peter Meinke

In Lit Blue Sky Falling, Meg Files illuminates the origin and evolution of the complex connections among all living beings.  From the Galapagos to Iceland, she follows tracks and sagas to let us all comprehend how we are related—among species, within families, and as part of cherished friendships. These elegant, earthy poems reward each reading with insight, wisdom, and delicious language.

–Peggy Shumaker