Bird Slips, Moon Glows --by Linda H. Y. Hegland

 Nonfiction / Poetry

Cyberwit.net

First Edition: November 25, 2019

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8194348579

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8194348573

43 pages

4 Stars

 

The Dedication of this book makes it worth the price of admission. It’s to her high school counsellor, and it’s marvelous and sets the tone for the volume.

 

 “Seek your small, bare rhythm / inside the thrumming cadence / of wind, and water, / birdsong, and quivering fish. / Listen to the feat of becoming.”  This first stanza from the first poem, Listen, shows us how we become, then are able to enter into conversations with the poet. 

 

Ms. Hegland’s poems sing, whether as a trembling leaf about to fall (Covenant) or out on the prairie as a child, a woman, where she finds “Bird bones thin as glass,”. She has an affinity for the beauty of nature whether from the coyote who just ate to a small pebble she picks up, admires, and pockets.

 

We are taken to visit death, to old age, to dancing with bees. She is homesick for her prairie and makes me homesick for a prairie upon which I never lived, never knew. Her poem about drawing, sketching, from live models made me wish my uncle still lived. He would have loved the truth of it.

 

Do I have to have a favorite in every book I read? Yes, but I never share, because my favorite may not be yours and I want you to buy and read this book and find your own favorites. We all bring our own stories to whatever we read, but I do admit I really liked Suzanne.