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toniclark's review
A slim and lovely volume of poems written as a tribute to Kaber's friend and fellow poet, Karie Friedman.
The first poem is a cento composed of lines drawn from Friedman's own work (from her poetry collection Add Water, Add Fire). The rest of the poems recount the last few weeks of Friedman's life — a fall, fatigue, the illness that took over her body so suddenly and finally, and the author's love and loss and grief. Kaber's poems are moving, evocative, and beautifully crafted — a blend of fresh images and incisive language. Here is her gentle elegy, which grieves the loss of a witness, but which itself bears witness.
A Brief Elegy
I grieve the loss of a witness
of small things—
a slip, stained dark and torn,
uncovered beneath floorboards,
a sheet of ice cut to lace,
a gaggle of wild turkeys
descending the hill, broken
narrow-necked bottles that once held
Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Cure,
a mouse escaping burning brush,
a house sinking
under white waves of snow,
a glass raised to a dead lover,
a woman on a brick walk who falls
remembering
the summer day she wore a rose in her hair.
The first poem is a cento composed of lines drawn from Friedman's own work (from her poetry collection Add Water, Add Fire). The rest of the poems recount the last few weeks of Friedman's life — a fall, fatigue, the illness that took over her body so suddenly and finally, and the author's love and loss and grief. Kaber's poems are moving, evocative, and beautifully crafted — a blend of fresh images and incisive language. Here is her gentle elegy, which grieves the loss of a witness, but which itself bears witness.
A Brief Elegy
I grieve the loss of a witness
of small things—
a slip, stained dark and torn,
uncovered beneath floorboards,
a sheet of ice cut to lace,
a gaggle of wild turkeys
descending the hill, broken
narrow-necked bottles that once held
Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Cure,
a mouse escaping burning brush,
a house sinking
under white waves of snow,
a glass raised to a dead lover,
a woman on a brick walk who falls
remembering
the summer day she wore a rose in her hair.
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