Seventy-Two Labors

Seventy-Two Labors a metaphor for the interconnection of all lives sentient and insentient could easily be titled Seventy-Two Astonishments. Poet and Zen teacher Susan K?D? Efird marshals the ordinary and extraordinary elements of our lives to send her readers in ever-expanding ever-deepening directions. The book's three sections deliver imagination and compassion unbounded: a long poem about a radiant pot awake on the stove; short lyric poems in Song Cycles; and a final poem about a morning walk around her neighborhood and the Milky Way that carries us home. Humor and gratitude shattered innocence and reverence infuse the whole.