Page 3 of 3 <

Poet's Choice

Discussion Policy

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

reading the revision of Magnus saying the lunar

rainbow appeared to him twice in one year,

not the once-in-fifty-years of Aristotle.

I have only seen the lunar rainbow once in a lifetime,

over the high bog of an ancient gravesite

lit by a ringed moon. The whole thing

with a small rain.

It was midnight and the arch was black

and every color, and the new burros and sheep

made such a racket instead of sleeping

that we knew we were seeing something profound

among the sock puppet headstones

in the deep August light, us wondering whether

the souls of the layers of the dead beneath us warmed

to the rain under the phenomenon,

us in the dark wandering home.

(Andrew Marvell's poem "The Mower to the Glowworms" can be found in "The Complete Poems" of Andrew Marvell. Penguin Classics. Michelle Mitchell-Foust's poem "Us in the Dark Wandering Home" is from her book "Imago Mundi." Elixir. Copyright © 2005 by Michelle Mitchell-Foust.)

< 3

Find More Reviews and Features in Books

A pandemic waiting in the wings

Alan Sipress's superb and sobering "The Fatal Strain" details the shadowy progression of a virulent avian flu now moving across Asia.

Who do men say that I am?

Though too cursory to work as an intro to the Gospels, Mary Gordon's "Reading Jesus" should appeal to anyone who wants to wrestle with the problems and paradoxes of the New Testament.