By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, July 22, 2026 – Every poem I’ve composed has had a unique gestation – some few arrive fully mature and printable while most make a big noise at first but require many revisions before they’re presentable and printable. Thanks to a measure of serendipity, I can offer a useful example of a poem that arrived upside-down, with the title and concluding line needing to be reversed for it to be it’s best self!
Late last summer, during a family gathering at a camp in Scriba, just north of hometown Oswego, NY, I worked up a lakeside poem, then recited it for my nephew, who was practicing videography with his new GoPro.
Some time later, I realized that the poem would serve as an apt introduction to a series of poems called Oswego Suite. Not to get too ecclesiastic or even religious about it, but that’s when I knew the title of the poem, if not of the series, had to be Introibo Ad Altare Dei – because I view poetry as secular prayer. What is a poem, but an acknowledgment of something sacred, but without ancient incantations, rites, and rituals?
A couple months ago, I saw a call for submissions from a new magazine in San Francisco seeking material for their second themed issue, Healing Waters. Here is the final version of the poem born upside-down:
Introibo Ad Altare Dei
At dawn,
a gray ceiling breaks
over Lake Ontario’s shore
and shows a myriad of clouds,
white as swans,
which part and play themselves out
to display blue
as it becomes blue and bluer still,
while below, water ripples
just beneath
the furled feet of surface skimming birds.
The ripples rise –
water rises high enough to fall
then splash
and bless
the sanctuary of the shore.
Dave Read
A flip-book of Healing Waters is available @ $5:
