Poetry from The Collection

Hummingbird

I would rather look away than face your beauty, you who sailed to me on colored
winds, a purple flame hovering, patiently burning. Who am I to believe what is
revealed to my vision? As if I could bite the apple glowing from extended branch.
Or feel feathers flying past me, whispering freedom. Instead the stone in me
governs; it will lead me, one day, to sleep underwater. To die, not to rise. Though
I lean forward in my chair. I extend my unbroken hand. Child in me is waiting for
you to alight. And I must stay still lest she leave me, this spirit who sometimes
wakes in me, who binds me to my name.

Lost World

"When I close my eyes, I travel"
— Emily Dickinson

One lime dangles from the branch, lost world. Greener than Earth. Writing with
untouched jungles. Birds of paradise are mouths of wisdom. Howls travel, thunder.
Crocodiles bite at the planet's very seams. My nirvana spins in wind, lulls me
like sleep. Hummingbird descends, lone angel circling. I want to see myself in the
background, hovering in space. I want to know what I have become.

Spring is Anybody's Business

Spring is anybody's business, a consciousness expanding all the way to the hills.
Follow where it leads and you may walk forever in fields of larks replicating
sonatas, where purple lupine lives, the fragrance of pure dreams. Come. You are
entitled to the richness. I know you believe you are a crow flown from space.
Separated from your sisters. That Earth is not yours. That the sweet pea blooming
like night birthing stars is not an invitation to remain young. That the downy
sky, close enough to pluck air's feathers, does not give us permission to float out
of ourselves, to leave our bodies deep in humming loam. But spring is anybody's
business. Especially the suffering. The land is an infirmary, it's verdant nurses,
whirling dervishes. I tell you, there is no better medicine.

Writing Like Walking in Snow

Writing these words, all before me is pure. And glimmering the spirit's white.
In contrast: the ink I dip my quill in. The symbols I write. They darken the
landscape of paper. I am the crow etching my path across earth's frozen
perfection. Speaking into her silence. Tracing the labyrinth of hilltops. It is not
that I am unwanted here-in fact, I am needed. A form to give shape to emptiness.
Lungs to breathe breathlessness. It is to you I am walking. Beloved. Reader of this
poem. Your outstretched limbs, your branches, glitter, a bride's lace and diamonds.

Reviews for The Lost World

Drill explores earthly, celestial, and emotional landscapes in this mystical book of poems…. This lyrical poetry collection is rich with evocative imagery and emotional depth. Drill's descriptions are imaginative and unique, from Birds of Paradise as ‘mouths of wisdom' to a hummingbird as a ‘lone angel circling.' Drill turns the tiniest detail—like the ‘blue of unveiled secrets' of robins' eggs—into a beautiful and mysterious meditation.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Experience tranquility, reflection, and the beauty of the soul with this vibrant poetry collection. … In ethereal free verse, Drill carries the reader from poem to poem with the soft guidance of someone ushering you into the dreamworld…. If you like vibrant imagery, the chance for reflection, and poetry that bends the rules, you will find a new favorite with The Lost World.

INDEPENDENT BOOK REVIEWS, A Celebration of Indie Books by Elizabeth Zender


"Readers who enjoy Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, and Pablo Neruda won't want to miss this poetry. The combination of lyrical prose, nature, and philosophical poetry makes this a book to read time and again."

CAROL THOMPSON, Reader's Favorite


The Lost World by Celia Drill is a poignant and lyrical exploration of our contemporary existence. Through a series of imagistic poems, Drill invites readers on a journey that blurs the line between the tangible and the transcendent. Drill paints a vivid portrait of modern life, capturing its complexities and mysteries. Each poem guides us through both the physical world and deeper, spiritpal realms."

CHARNJIT GILL, author of Pray Tell

The power of poetry is its capacity to pry open the heart. Or the soul. That's when a poem, for some of us, becomes a prayer. Or an answered prayer. The Lost World is a collection best taken one page at a time. Each poem holds enough insight to linger for days.

JEANNE Lure, author of Until the Kingdom Comes

Haunted by the feelings you can't explain in words that reveal the pain yet transcend. That is how The Lost World captured me and took me on my own journey through the dark forest to smell the Paper Flowers. The powerful imagery and juxtaposition of nature and environment that Celia con-jures up made my hair stand on end and pay attention to the world that she created, powerful, confident, tasteful. Celia writes with such honesty and authenticity her book filled me with such gratitude.

ANDREW CLON1NGER, author of C6-C7

"Beloved, accompany me' Celia Drill beckons in The Lost World through prose poems that enliven dust motes, past spiderwebs with faces cast down, to an Easter beyond. We ‘enter…knowing nothing, of why I came' but find our-selves ‘floating out of time' with ‘a rush of poetry bleeding'. Drill finds us lost in a garden, ‘guiding me not just home, but everywhere at once' in a ,*world where ‘Earth, today, is generous'. A true delight to eat of the perceptive insight in this poetry collection.

JULIE S. PASCHOLD, author of Horizons, You Have Always Been Here, and Human Nature

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