Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars (Redux)

Patricia Clarks poems immerse the reader in the living world through the quality of her attention and appreciation. Theres hard-won intelligence here. We see it in people sharing a meal and being especially kind to each other after a suicide: lots of please and thanks / as we handed food around / basket of steaming bread / for buttering. Always there is a deep understanding of our interconnections as in the lovely and evocative final stanza of Near the Tea House at Meijer Japanese Garden now tracing a pale blue vein / under the skin like a leafs midrib. We would do well to take Patricia Clarks guidance: The charge: note what is here what departs. -Ellen Bass Indigo