Of Cautious Steps

<p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>I want to get this right / to climb into your sentences</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)> insists Darren Black's speaker in one of the poems in </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>Of Cautious Steps</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>. Indeed these poems which survey the collapse of eyesight which proffer </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>currents and faith / that crest and wane in slow decay</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)> whose Braille-trained</span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)> fingertip skims finds only the margin / a disconnected phone burned linoleum / a bottle's perfect mouth</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)> get things right with a heady and remarkable consistency from start to finish. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>To measure is to hope</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)> as Black tells us and it is our hearts that are measured by these poems so precisely wise so surefooted in their glorious craft and hopeful imagination. Tom Daley author </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(80 0 80 1)>Far Cry</em></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>