Cyrus Cassells
The river's soft pistons, the river's black silk
Under shooting stars—

The voluble ink and silver-white sky
Looming above the stark monastery

Become the coppice elk's vast eternity—
The duenna moon,

All at once coquettish,
Brash as sin, blanches

The river-curve, the heron,
The corral of fast-asleep horses—

August: the soul says,
Yes, I was there:

When raffish, runaway flames
Claimed the orphanage,

When rampant smoke drove the dying
Into the summer sea;

Present when riled protestors cried
If they fire into the crowd . . .

And then they fired into the crowd;
When the aghast stranger, fingering

An appalling dungeon photo, asked,
What sort of God would allow that?—

More than fleet, querying owls,
More than nightlong watchmen,

Born wide awake and dying, I confess
Not even this wondrous colossus

Of shooting stars,
Or the extravagant Earth's countless beauties

Seem capable of quenching this lust,
This innermost hunger for return—

Lord Buddha, God of Abraham,
I'm thirsty, fallible,

Incensed and restive in this desert monastery,
But not yet resigned,

Full of questions and parrying
From wolf's hour to blue hour

To burgeoning dawn—
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Black-and-white photograph of Sharon Olds
"Sharon Olds Spins Songs for the Human Family"

"In poems that confront the greatest issues plaguing our society today, Olds presents unflinching visions of personal and public violence, political dissent, and the media, showing readers how the world’s images inform our own personal refrains. 'We are moved to bear witness,' she says. 'Sometimes that looks hopeless, but I like to fight what I hate.'"

via PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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Cover of W. S. Merwin's The Lice

"Before the first Earth Day, way back in 1967, Merwin was speaking for animals and for biodiversity, and sounding a warning of the coming human extinction. Now as we live into the age of the Anthropocene, more and more likely to be the last age to be given a name, his warning is no less grave. Was he heard then? Is he heard now? Perhaps not widely, but how much does that matter? Merwin speaks prophetically and politically, still, addressing everyone, one at a time.”
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