Peace in Exile

Poems by the author of Earth Rising: Ecological Belief in an Age of Science, wrestles with the paradox of our human condition, our pain and pleasure, from Sepulveda Blvd, through the chaparral and the Mojave desert--deceptively full of menace and of life--along the river Kern in King's Canyon to peaks of the Sierra Nevada. We encounter the canyon wren, golden trout in Goddard Creek, and at Monache Mt., and in memory and dreams, those who came before us in these wild and urban places. There is irony in "The Dow is down...the tao is down slightly, also" and in the whimsical yet serious Lo-ku poems like "What the chainsaws have made clear." From the opening sonnet--where amidst the roar of images and sounds all around us, there is still love to be found--the poems take on the resonance of litany in "Night Song," and there's a ray of hope in "Alien" when others are leaving L.A. The light shines through the shadows on the ascent to the mountain peaks, and the backpacker survives a snowstorm, aware of the ultimate power of nature over the will to survive. "The roar of images and sounds impounds us "like ancient city walls--keeping out the world, "keeping in beloved mayhem, barter, "smells, deceit and favor. Nothing astounds "but news: politicians, boy versus girl.... "Yet even here, it is love that grounds us. "Even here, where Babylon surrounds us."Reminiscent of Roethke, Gary Snyder. A cassette of the poet reading some of the poems is also available.