Title: Without A Crystal Stair – Through Moments in the Chimes of Time
Author: Dr. Sarah Smith Ducksworth
Publisher: Writers Branding LLC
ISBN: 978-1639453948
Genre: Poetry
Pages: 102
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
Without A Crystal Stair – Through Moments in the Chimes of Time, including an essay by author Dr. Sarah Smith Ducksworth, is a treasure – no ifs, ands, or buts. The reader gets the ultimate gift – a reaffirmation, in beauty and praise and celebration, of the value of life. Many stirring threads come together in these poems, making for individual tapestries that stand by themselves but also, as a whole, speak volumes about the wealth and dignity of the author’s experience.
Dr. Ducksworth grew up in the South, in Mississippi, the youngest of three high-achieving daughters. The parents – loving, generous, wise – were school teachers who imbued the girls with all ‘the right stuff’ including an early appreciation of reading books and learning words. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Over the course of a lifetime devoted to reaffirmation of these values – in her own teaching career, in her marriage, in her dedication to humanity and just causes – Ducksworth carried the torch. In these thirty-eight poems, she shares her vision, her talent for rhyme and le mot juste. In the process she imparts a great deal of feeling.
The poems make you feel the richness of the Southern springtime, of the soil, of the fruit upon the trees. You feel the piquancy of stolen moments, of two girls watching horror movies on a sultry summer’s day. You feel the banality of evil in its rampant forms, including the ugly stupidity of Jim Crow and racial divide. At bottom, the concerns directly addressed by these masterful verses are those shared by all: aging, wisdom, the passage of time.
Dr. Ducksworth draws widely and deeply from divergent streams of literature. Echoes of Ford Madox Ford and even Faulkner resound in her portraits of Southern life. Further on in the volume, in poems capturing the essence of the daimon, of the evil in man, there are distinct reverberations of Baudelaire and of the archetypal themes of Jung. But through it all, there is a refrain, an ‘eternal return’, to the most important theme of all – the sanctity and ultimate meaningfulness of life:
The Enigma of Life: What I Do Not Understand, I Must Believe
“God did not make the minuscule cell
Residing at the bottom of the ocean
To open and shut in perfect time
With the moon when it rises and sinks
And then allow me to spend my life
In the form of a walking shadow,
Destined to strut and fret
Until my time is spent
And then be heard no more.”
The illustrations, both photographs and color drawings, provide a happy counterpoint to the text. And Dr. Ducksworth writes haiku, too; these poems are fun, sometimes exquisite, deep. For readers unaccustomed to poetry, this book is an excellent introduction, a banquet of good taste, great writing, and bounteous life. For confirmed poetasters, this book will be a welcome addition to the shelf.
