It's not just that I can smell the salty ocean air and hear the gentle waves whooosh...shooooo on the shore when I read Emily Scudder's poetry... it's that I find myself transported to a place of closely-examined ennui, dissatisfaction, and desperation for just one hour alone - you know, the mental activities we all engage in but don't have the guts to 'fess up to? Scudder's writing is so honest, so relatable, so likable, dammit! I just want to hang out with her! But at the same time, this is a masterful poet who loves her husband and children, and who possesses an enviable, nearly Zen-like connection with Nature... a woman who appreciates the small, sacred moments of each day:

     If you leave a soda can on the lawn
     bees begin to hover. They know to come.

     Ants lift a blue chip.

     A hamster eats her gummy stillborn, more
     protein than progeny now.

     Like the tree knows when to fork itself.

     Nature rivets. Screws me into dramas
     in the kitchen, past the yard.

     Behind the house a black snake tried
     to swallow a brown frog. It gave up.

     Slithered to the brush.

     Gleaming in snake spit, the huge frog
     sat, stunned in the sun.

     10 whales washed up.
     8 bottle-nosed dolphins too.

     Volunteers came quickly. They found
     some alive & picked at. The gulls did it.

     On stretchers, the dolphins clicked & clicked.

     ~ "Natural Instincts"

The most noble emotion is love, of course. But where there is love, there is pain, and nowhere is this more evident than in Object of Desire by Carol Lynn Grellas. As stylish and sophisticated as the beauty who adorns the cover, this collection presents with warmth and grace each sacred moment of being alive—the blessings, the losses, the haunting image of an opportunistic fly loitering on the slack jaw of your beloved pet.

Woven throughout is the story of a woman grieving for her mother; spending the first New Year's eve without her, waiting for an epiphany / or message sent by an archangel / telling us she's arrived at her destination. For me, the most powerful poem is “An Unexpected Toast,” which I have yet to read without choking back tears:

      For the women who came before me
      with a tipple of champagne I'll click
      my glass against the crystal sky...

      To—
      My Mother-in-law
      Who in the middle of her stroke
      grinned while she snuck a couple of grapes
      off the coffee table, then sprawled
      along the celadon sofa like Cleopatra
      without the Egyptian gown.

     To—
      My Grandmother
      Who danced The Hukilau after returning
      from a cruise to the Hawaiian islands,
      wrapped in her flame retardant grass skirt
      barely moving her hips in a figure eight
      due to severe arthritis.

     To—
      My Aunt Ida
      Who died from barren nest syndrome
      after a lifetime deprived of being
      with child, yet gave us everything
      imaginable till her heart exploded,
      from holding too much love.

     To—
      My Mother
      Who had the grace of a saint
      yet depleted of hope
      through her miserable illness.
      Who while her body was ravaged
      by an insufferable disease, mustered
      enough strength to write in chicken scratch:

      This is a wonderful day.

The fourth time I read this poem it was to my mother, and I know we were both thinking of the other emotion that goes with love—gratitude. Mine is profound, and I thank Carol Lynn for the reminder.

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