Close Enough

<p class=ql-align-justify>In <strong>Mike Dillon</strong>'s <em>Close Enough</em> luminous scenes from a lifetime unfold through poetry and prose in a pilgrim's progress toward an I-Thou relationship with the world. The introductory poem <em>Kyoto</em> echoing the Japanese haiku master Basho sets the tone:<em> to stand in the heart of Kyoto/longing for Kyoto</em>. Born in 1950 Dillon grew up with his father's silent legacy of combat in World War II. In the prose passage <em>Vietnam</em> he waits for the school bus with the other kids when an older boy doomed to die in Vietnam pulls a prank that thrills them all. And then: <em>The school bus neared. The brakes scritched. The yellow door buckled open. And we all boarded for the same destination. For a little while longer.</em> Against the backdrop of history comes the author's personal search for the crossroads of time and eternity where the there's a light <em>that carries/an unbroken thread./As it was. And is</em>.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><em>Close Enough</em> carries forward the resonant themes from Dillon's 2021 chapbook <em>The Return</em> from Finishing Line Press. British reviewer Matthew Paul writing of <em>The Return</em> in <em>Sphinx</em> noted that Dillon seems to be seeking a silence just out of reach bearing the influences of haiku tanka Chinese poetry and the likes of Snyder and Rexroth. At his sparest his poetry takes on a rare limpidity worthy of those influences.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p><br></p>