The Hand of the Midnight Moon: Selected Poems

The poems in this volume, written over the past fifty years or so, create images that range from stark to elegant and soaring. They paint landscapes in careful strokes that will be familiar to many, but which then sprout issues of character, honor, wisdom, and humor that surprise. The vibrant images, drawn with an intense clarity, offer up these other layers not with harshness, but with gentle suggestion and even whimsy. They are springboards into a world of choices between right and wrong, justice and mercy, affection and distain, and love and hatred. There are lines that evoke scenes we all can remember. "... the hand of the midnight moon paints quiet shadows" is one; "The colored pens of dawn write messages, / Ephemeral lines in disappearing ink" are two more. Many of the poems depict a finely-drawn scene-a natural or urban setting-that evokes an unexpected emotion or a state of mind. Some of them will likely comfort the disturbed; some of them might disturb the comfortable. Oh, well!