If the Water

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>If the Water</em></strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Cathy Cain</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> steers a flotilla of fantasies and meditations that</span><span style=color: rgba(255 0 0 1)> </span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>with her big</span><span style=color: rgba(255 0 0 1)> </span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>heart and playful verbal dexterity become lifeboats of connection as we navigate the strange amorphous and often anxious seas of being.</span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </strong></p><p></p><p>-------------------</p><p></p><p><em>If the Water</em> is not just a great delight it is a book of delights: a book of play a book of thought a book that speaks the truth of love and sadness.Throughout these vivid poems Cain is powerfully aware of the many seas of being and welcomes the reader on the journey with a rare and generous hand.</p><p><strong>-Annie Lighthart </strong><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>author of <em>Pax</em></strong><strong> </strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>In a world of watery light waves and tides Cain's beautiful poems reflect back to us our own sorrows and joys leaving us <span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>all </span>with a better understanding that we are <span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>all '</span><em>leaf shimmer and silver turning/a wild multitude of small tremblings/a simmering sea.' </em></p><p><strong>-Carey Taylor author of <em>Some Aid to Navigation</em></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>Cain's language pulses with musical rhythms and each poem is deftly accomplished by intuitive forms. After turning the last page of this haunting sparkling collection the breadth-childhood motherhood love self-reflection-and most of all the grace of Cain's poetry abides.</p><p><strong>-Lana Hechtman Ayers author of <em>The Autobiography of Rain</em></strong></p>