Suzanne and I exchanged books, which I have to admit, was not only her idea but the best idea I've heard in a long time. This morning I woke up, thought about grading more papers, went downstairs to the mailbox hoping Red Paper Flower had arrived, and there it was. A gem on a sunny Saturday morning, and a signed gem, at that. First thing I thought: here is the person after all. She blogs, I know, but look: she signs in both blue ink and black, in cursive, with her hand and two pens. And with her hands she put this gem into an envelope, addressed it with her pens and penmanship, and sent it to me, from her house and lovely garden in the east to my place here in the midwest. If that ain't magic, I don't know what is. And she does all kinds of things in this little book that I can't do. I don't know how you do all of this, for example, in one tiny lyric narrative, but God I admire it--I've been looking at this poem all day:
The First Signs
And forsythia tumbles
over the fence
wild with yellow--
When I was seven a wasp
landed on my lip
drawn by the sweetness
of my mother's red lipstick.
--while purple flagstones
split with grass
The same day a child next door
squeezed six new kittens dead.
That's when I knew--
there are two shades of still.
Thanks so much, Suzanne, for your beautiful book.
