Arabesque

by Rachel Dacus

Arabesque: keyword of a new collection from poet/novelist Rachel Dacus. Arabesques, as in the looped swirls notating language, from its earliest days chiseled in stone, or the graceful curve of a dancer’s toe pointing the opposite way from their outstretched hand. Poems that point in all life’s directions: love and loss, birth and death, family and loneliness, sensuality and discipline—until bipolar opposites balance in an illuminating continuum. “Rachel Dacus’ poetry sings and celebrates the body and spirit in form and function, freedom and flight. Throughout this world of journey and process, here and there, she acclaims what underlies, immutable.” —Jeff Santosuosso, Editor-in-Chief, Panoply.

Kindle Edition

First published August 24, 2018

About the author

Rachel Dacus writes time travel and women's fiction with a supernatural twist. She is the author of seven novels and four poetry collections. Her Timegathering series has been called a "unique and spellbinding twist to the time-traveling adventure, perfect for fans of Susanna Kearsley and Diana Gabaldon." Rachel lives in Northern California with her architect husband and Silky Terrier. She is a member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association.

Reviews

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:


RECYCLING

I fed the pages of our estrangement
into a shredder’s steel teeth.
I let go proof, belief, and faith.
I sliced into ribbons
the alphabet of evidence.

I let go dependence
and tore into bits the duo
photographs. The paper fell away
in curls, in arabesques
of calligraphy. Crinkled hurts
spiraled into the bin.

Even without paper, we wrote
furiously for years of blame.
We scrolled even on the sliced strands
and filed the wounds into folders,
suspended them and then scribbled on
more dark regrets, to be thumbed
soft again and again.

But if we want to go on,
we can’t let the detritus
spill across our washed carpets.
We must make mulch
of the pulp, learn new scripts,
clean the shadows of our erasures,
and virgin our leaves
with ruthless forgetting.


BLESSINGS

Yesterday my bedridden stepmother
uncharacteristically said God
was blessing us, blessing her,
and that blessings shower all around us.
What makes this shrunken woman
with a broken pelvis lying in bed
feel blessed? All her ninety-five years
are behind her. She can hardly remember
who she is, and yet she sees a light

streaming on her in this nursing hospital’s
off-gray walls, despite the falling away
of her body. I wonder how she came
to be one of those who sense angels.
I wonder how she knows she is blessed,
and through what telescope she sees
beyond her broken flesh.

People often seem to feel blessings
around someone who is dying.
And after, a celebration. We were all so jubilant
after my brother’s funeral.
We had such a raucous party.
We toasted him, played his music,
gloried in stories of his life.
And now, nearing her last,
my stepmom feels this parade nearing.
She hears its trumpets and cymbals.

Is she sitting up in her light body
and then walking out to join
the procession of herself?
As if her life was a great work
and completing it is a hallelujah moment.
Friends will gather with us, flush in memories,
all saying at the end, after the hug,
we’ve been blessed. It’s the dark
season now, and so good
to think of light. To know a new solstice
awaits. And we turn, as into an open door.

[Jane McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dacus's collection combines childhood memories and personal experiences that invoke emotions, ranging from sadness and sympathy to happiness and appreciation for things often overlooked. Her impassioned words create images that bring each poem to life. Arabesque is a magnificent piece to add to your bookshelf!!

[Answer Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arabesque is a luminous, quietly powerful collection that rewards slow reading and deep attention. Rachel Dacus uses the idea of the arabesque both as ornament and as motion as a unifying principle, allowing each poem to curve, turn, and reach in unexpected directions. The language feels deliberate and embodied, rooted equally in intellect and sensation. Whether the poems explore love, grief, family, solitude, or sensuality, there is a strong sense of balance at work of opposites held in creative tension rather than forced resolution.
What makes this collection especially compelling is its physicality. Dacus writes with an awareness of the body in space, of movement and restraint, gesture and stillness. The poems feel choreographed without being rigid, disciplined yet free. Across the collection, moments of intimacy and vulnerability are paired with a larger philosophical calm, giving the work a contemplative depth that lingers long after reading.
Arabesque is poetry that trusts the reader inviting reflection rather than explanation, and offering illumination through rhythm, image, and form. It is a graceful, resonant collection that affirms both the complexity and continuity of human experience.