 |
Poet and religious thinker Flemming has created this bold yet touching collection as a banner, both of inspiration and alert, hoping that readers will take her message seriously. It is expressed clearly in the opening work, "Do You Want the Earth to Sing?" in which she recalls the great flood as described in the Bible, warning that if humans do not repent, the earth will gladly consume them in a rain of "fire and brimstone." A well-considered metaphor in "Is Your Egg Cracked" equates a human separated from God with a raw egg, with a thin covering that can easily break and spill all its essence. Meanwhile, a boiled egg is like someone who has accepted and relies on God: "When you peel the shell off that egg, it still holds firm."
Several of the poems examine the question of comparing. For instance, why do we compare people to one another, finding fault and causing pain, when we don't compare an orange to an apple or a dog to a cow? "Dirt or Topsoil" reminds readers that "we all love dirt" because it is the source of our foods, either in plants directly or from the animals that eat plants. In fact, God made humans from dust. Dirt occurs in different colors, yet all mix together. So why, Flemming asks, "does one dirt think that it is better than the other dirt…?"
Many of Flemming's contributions concern the wonders of nature and its symbolic gifts (e.g., "Just Like a Crab," "Around a Tree," "Ditches," "Who Is the Mountain in Your Life") while others directly comment on political, familial, psychological and social issues, urging readers of all different religions, for example, to "hand touch and agree," and noting in "Raw" that "God don't care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, He don't care about your color." Some poems focus on religion and its deeper implications. For instance, the title work exhorts readers to remember God's words and live by them because, in the end, they will be judged by them.
Many of the poems in this collection are also accompanied by Bible verses that support the poet's viewpoint. Biblical quotations, sometimes interspersed with the words of the author, are given in colored fonts to highlight their importance and include the book and verse references. There are also simple but evocative illustrations for some of the works, such as a distant mountain view, a long, lonely ditch, a set of footprints in the sand, and hands filled with topsoil. Small florets grace the corners of each page.
Flemming has been writing poetry since her youth, and in recent years she has taken it up as a serious endeavor. Her perspective as a sincere Christian gives her work the depth that spirituality can endow on those who choose, as she clearly has, to devote their life to principle and contemplation, both of which qualities shine through the author's work. It is her stated wish that her book will help others focus on the consequences of turning away from God. Flemming's short but strongly stated observations could serve as excellent material for religious study or personal meditation among like-minded seekers.