| In her new collection, Earth, Mercy, Mary Rose O'Reilley sifts through the debris of human habitation -- pink thong sandals, curlers, broken televisions -- looking for a kind of junkyard grace:"e,Holiness enters again / turquoise fins, and the Cessna's carapace / lifts on its wind."e, The first poem,"e,Genesis,"e, locates the reader in Edenic time,"e,in that humid and green / arrival,"e, while the last,"e,Watching the End of the World from Hovland, Minnesota,"e, gives nature a final word:"e,Morels on goat prairie gloat / in their blue light. Spruce / speaking of green on green."e, Between these points, any poem offers a threshold over which something unexpected may pass -- a ghost, an angel, or the yap of an insouciant dog alerting us to apocalypse. Against all that threatens our survival, Earth, Mercy asserts the beauty of our poignantly sensual life. |
