Tears in Heaven

Click on the orange link below to read a review of History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky.

http://josephsreviews.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/tears-in-heaven/

Good Times, Bad Times

Click on the orange link below to read an article about the current pluses and minuses of the book trade.

http://josephsreviews.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/good-times-bad-times/

Touch-Me-Nots

Touch-Me-Nots by Jill Bialosky

She brought a little of the country into the city

in the pots of impatiens she had planted

The petals white, pure, the opposite of color.

She had transferred the impatiens from the garden,

digging her hands into soil two parts fibrous loam,

one part leaf mold and peat moss and pushing

the roots into the earth. Despite the quality

of the soil - its rich decomposition of life -

still they would not last. The plants were hard

and tender, with thick stems and dark green leaves,

the seedpods inside waiting to release, the air

awash in pollen. She looked into the flower

as into a pair of beckoning eyes offering

sustenance independent of a body, free floating

and regenerative and wholly belonging

to what was impossible ever to touch.

Note: Jill Bialosky is the author of Intruder, a volume of poetry "which stretches our understanding of the creative process." She will be participating in the Los Angeles Times Book Festival on April 25, 2009.

Photo: flickr (tile432)

A Child Banishes the Darkness

A Child Banishes the Darkness
by Jill Bialosky (from Subterranean)

The child presides over our lives like the
Blinding presence of tall white pines. In the
Low room she hovers; she is the dark
untamed place, like a thicket in a
neglected wood where I fall to after each new
loss, the unforgotten dream buried like
a small toy under layers of frozen
un-raked leaves. She is the hidden secret
we don't talk about because there is
nothing left to say. So much snow on the roofs
of tall buildings, along the cobbled streets,
in the eaves, and on the narrow bridge and
in the quiet palm of the newborn
Nothing left to fear. All the earth is calm.