Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Falling from High Trees
4. I Dropped from the Sky That Morning 1
5. My father’s topcoat 5
6. Cap-pelé coastline at 4:30 a.m. 6
7. Infusion 7
8. At dawn, i open 8
9. A letter slips into the coastline 9
10. Preparations 10
11. Ancestral waters 11
12. Aerial Vagabonds
13. Between Thoughts 13
14. On a swath of land bordered by the northumberland strait 16
15. Vatican ii opens the church’s window 17
16. Two continents 18
17. There is no why 19
18. Philippe petit as prometheus 20
19. Posthumous visit 21
20. Divine motion, 1992 22
21. Why père chabert wept when he read baudelaire to his first-year university class 23
22. Père chabert and the passion 24
23. A house in chile, a school in l’acadie 25
24. In the background 26
25. Père chabert’s legacy 27
26. You will walk along the river 28
27. On Canvas
28. Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon 29
29. The dream of constantine 32
30. Metaphysical composition 34
31. Theseus and the minotaur 35
32. Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening 36
33. Detail of the saint anthony panel from the hermit saints triptych, ca. 1505 37
34. Icon of the allegorical ladder of saint john climacus 38
35. Allegory of immortality 39
36. Drop curtain for the ballet parade 41
37. The city rises 42
38. Time is a river without banks 43
39. The tower of babel 44
40. Magdalene with two flames 45
41. Without Beginning or End
42. John 47
43. Marie 50
44. Rain in cap-pelé 51
45. Topcoat 52
46. Train to boston 53
47. Shining knight 54
48. Christmas eve 55
49. John william becomes a breadwinner at fourteen 56
50. The joan hat 57
51. And for a father hear a child 58
52. The pod’s dark seeds 59
53. Goddess of nightfall 60
54. The children now scattered 61
55. My grandmother marie 62
56. My grandfather john 63
57. Notes 65
58. Acknowledgments 67