Publisher: Mercury HeartLink
August 27, 2022
Paperback: 108 pages
ISBN-10: 1949652211
ISBN-13: 978-1949652215
English
Cost at time of review: $17.00
5 Stars
The poem from which the title is taken is Again, the Sahara which closes with this line, “…Alone we stand / under a sea of stars shielding a golden / geography of absence.” My copy is inscribed by the author with the notation, “Not all the absences have to be filled.” I share that inscription because it is true—the absence of sound does not need to be filled with talk or music; it can be enjoyed for what it is. Fortunately for us, Ms. Lauradunn filled many spaces absent of ink, with ink in the shape of letters and words and poetry to read, think about, and savor.
The poems are in four sections, “before the ebb of the sea, if we could count the years backward, without the fall I will not know the sweetness,” and “woman seeks her shape” this last section is one poem of fourteen numbered poems. The first poem in the book, A New Key, starts the reader on a journey of life. “One stroke of the key / expands the cheat / into loss / Another stroke eases / the pain into anger.”
We journey through alpine forests to the Sahara, to anyplace in between she takes us. Mostly, I travel into myself. I related to just about every poem in this book, Miscarriage to The Missing, from Crossed Paths with the leading line, “Seahorses sing in a silent wail” to the last poem, Duncan Canal, Alaska a single poem written in fourteen parts. “…we step / with care but the muskeg / sucks us into colorful / “ and “in this secret / forest death breathes // “ to the last poem, number XIV with the near closing lines of, “I bend to my reflection / and rise with bear / “
Lost love, lost children, lost life are all in this collection. Some absences may be filled, many are there to savor, to love, to hold onto, and respect as absences. And yet, those absences are not holes, and Lauradunn fills those absences with beauty and light.
A wonderful book, one to read and contemplate, to chew and savor as a rare meal of perfectly spiced foods, as often as wanted.
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