Days of Falling Flesh and Rising Moons

Steve Denehans wholehearted response to family life is the cornerstone of this wise and canny book. Through the tiny everyday moments we come to know an energetic seven-year-old daughter a wife whose presence heals a father aging into forgetfulness and a host of others. We see bonds between parent and child strengthen through conversations about dinosaur-shaped clouds questions about death quiet humming loud car-singing evening bike rides. We witness an adult father re-seeing his own childhood the parental decisions which had shaped him and the decisions which he and his spouse are making as they give their Robin her wings. As songwriter Mark Nevin says Steve Denehan is a beautiful soul with an all too rare lightness of touch.In Adopted for instance we study a packet of photos delivered by an unknown uncle. In Your Old Cherry Datsun we watch a role reversal as ourpoet/narrator addresses the only father hes known one with whom he can sing himself hoarse but who now has trouble with simple tasks: You are still my father/ but you are changed/ and you are other minor-key words/ unsure/ fading/ nervous/ elderly/ forgetful/ you are still my father/ butsometimes now/ in these darkening dusks/ I have the privilege/ of being yours.Structurally Days of Falling Flesh and Rising Moons is fluid and natural with poems about stage fright or lizards intermixed with those about lung cancer and love. Quick surges of anger are paired with lullaby moments and lullaby moments might be followed by nightmares or by memories ofbeing a slightly wild lad called DENO. Deeply personal poems may be surrounded and balanced by pieces of cultural history. The final defeat of a once-famous boxer is described with anguished empathy for example as is The Last Dance of Eva Braun. Fantasies about becoming increasingly mechanical-until you arent sure whether youre made of bone or metal--find their places between celebrations of birds and bogs and a magical December day so sunny it seems to be summer.The collection was finished before a virus named Covid-19 shook the globe and sent Ireland into acomplete lockdown. However that event seemed to require poetry so ten of this collections final poems arelate additions Denehans responses to the pandemic. Taken together they constitute amicrocosm not just of the Covid-19 world but of this poets interior landscape. They range fromshock to acceptance from strict observance of painful rules to moments of deep peace and ...bright wings.Such intertwining keeps readers aware that both happiness and pain can be fragile easily cracked orcrumbled. Though wholehearted devotion to a rich family life is the collections cornerstone itsthe awareness of complexity that gives Denehans Days of Falling Flesh and Rising Moons its essential shape.