Book Review

I think I will have to set it aside,
This book of new poems by a writer
I read a favorable review of and then
The single short ode to her own life
Revealing her wisdom and her sadness.

Her words and phrasing and meter
Are also the ones I would have chosen. Yes,
She writes as I do or try, weaving her self
Into the forest of visions her searching eyes
Expose with magic flare and then modestly tuck away.

But I can only read the first one,
Wrestling and stumbling through the next page,
Seeing her words, so perfectly strung, tousled
By my reckless attraction to rhyme and its reason,
As her vision enfolds me in her grasp.

Not in the way you think, though, for while she
Ensnared me with our likemindedness, she was kind
And invited me to explore her plentiful garden.
Able to wander freely within, I wander still.
I guess I’m not free—not until I turn the page.

But then where will she take me and will I
Still see what was beautiful before her words
Bade me gaze through a new prism, the one
She colors in ways like I but more perfectly than
How I had seen them before I knew her?

Time enough has passed and I find myself
Looking ahead to what awaits me the other side.
I think though that I will savor a while
Her simple quest for self-survival and how
Each page turned breathes fresh hope.