Off the Page

Theresa Kishkan weaves a gorgeous narrative out of light and time in her beautiful essay, "Love Story," which opens the newly-released non-fiction collection The Summer Book, edited by Mona Fertig. Reviewer Howard Stewart calls the The Summer Book "a masterpiece collection of finely crafted and evocative reminders of why summer is such a special season"; read this essay for a taste of just how right he is. 

*****

On an early summer morning, I wake to the sound of Swainson’s thrushes. Beyond my bedroom window, beyond the house, they sing where the woods begin. And there are robins, vireos, the long whistle of a varied thrush. My curtains are rough white linen, and they filter light, the light at dawn, coming from the east, pink and golden as the sun finds its way over Mount Hallowell. My husband sleeps closest to the window, and he pulls the curtains aside to let in more song. There is honeysuckle blooming, and dog roses, trumpet vines. Hummingbirds bury themselves in the flowers. The pink throats of the tree frogs inflate, a loud vibrato close enough to touch. A face peers in the window through the lattice of vines, and it’s a weasel, as surprised to see me in a bed with pillows and a log-cabin quilt as I am to see a weasel among the dog roses. That’s what I� …

“Bowering is one of our essential poets. Despite her unflinching acknowledgement of the horrors humans visit on themselves and others, her vision is grounded in the subtle integrity of love. Her brilliant imagistic gift is always offered in service to the mystery of insight, the other invisible worlds gathered close in this one.” —Jan Zwicky 

*****

Woods 

Woods, you are very sly, picking those moments when you are quiet and off guard to reveal yourselves to us, folding us into your calm, accepting us to the sway, the rhythm of your space, space interwoven with the calm that rests forever in you….

—Emily Carr

Everywhere I looked, even on dark days,

sun eluded the trees and became the open palms 

of skunk cabbages (Lysichiton americanus), 

their yellow spathes soft and wet in the sponging air. 

I turned off the road, and the caravan wheels sank

in the marsh of the track. Nobody came this way,

but once—see the apple trees and the cut marks?—

a family planned to make a home in the forest banks.

I did not know that trees come quietly, 

their roots advance so slowly

I would not sense their approach

until their mouths opened high up,

within birds’ nests.

I lay down on the moss,

and listened to all they had to say—

because nothing could ever extinguish

the art of this gr …