Windows into the Soul

The poems in this book carry the quiet authority of broad-based lived experience. They range in topics from political violence, hate, and horror to the peace, rest, and joy of nature and everything in between: the charming, humorous pride of a fisherman's catch, a young boy's Treasure Island adventure, a beaver's indomitable courage after a storm, a very sad melancholy moon, a historic view of salt, birds and rabbits stealing blueberries, a heart- wrenchingly sad cold wind in August, the soft alternative to a hard life, the horror of genocidal body parts in the river, the nostalgia of a castle's describing how "my heart leaps up, my turrets smile, and heavy years grow light."

Nature's ambivalence is as stark as man's when "a world of harmony and joy, devoid of tooth and claw," is shattered by a hawk's snatching up a black snake for dinner. There are as many words as images in these poems that draw from all five senses and end in a desert monsoon that sweeps away the scorching sun and arid land, which had left deer panting in the shade, roadrunners slow to walk, and dusty snakes scarcely able to rattle.

These images speak for themselves in focusing on experience and reflection, rather than spectacle, without forcing conclusions. Maybe it's the humility, the curiosity, and the reverence for what travel can reveal that shows rather than tells what a life thoughtfully observed can become when the poet watches, listens, and feels, as Stendhal once described, like "a mirror wandering down a great road," showing as much beauty as ugliness for a complete view of the inner as much as the outer soul.