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Reviews 191 Earthen Wayfarer. Selected Poems: 1972— 1987. By Richard F. Fleck. (Iowa City: Writers House Press, 1988. 40 pages, $7.95.) The Abalone Heart. By Barbara Meyn. (Boise, Idaho: Ahsahta Press, 1988. 60 pages, $4.95.) How will man and the environment exist simultaneously? Two poets present contrasting philosophies toward the natural world, the first Far Eastern or meditative, the latter decidly Western and activist. In Fleck’s disparate collection of wayfarer’s travelogues, images rise in Rocky Mountain Indian country, to show how cottonwoods along the Platte River “lead the spirit upward” (p. 5); scenes in the “Rock Garden ofRyoan-Ji Dera” become bridge planks that lead “from Earth to/Heaven . . . / to the other / side of life” (p. 21), fusing the physical human world with the natural spirit world. Yet the poet is more acted upon than acting, as in “Wood of Mino-O”: “I am led, / like Henry Thoreau / at Walden Pond, / to ancient India / and spirit’s sacred source” (17). The hook in Fleck’sworld, it seems to me, is that nature does more for man than man for nature; and that today, with the environment under attack, the pacifist poet “encloistered ... at [his] dormer window” (39) will be called to more than observation. Meyn selects thematic crossroads that cause us to rethink ways of coping and coexisting with the environment:drought, seasons, menopause, migration, urban sprawl, aging, death. Meyn’s wide outlook begins with “Crossroads”: pioneers pass from East to West via Grandfather’s farm, contrasting man’s impulse to settle with yearning for sea renewal. That “the only changeless law is change” (12) allows this struggle of passage. “The Abalone Heart” symbolizes the poet’s enduring commitment to confront life’s paradoxes—tough fragility, careful abandon, chaotic design, responsible freedom. “The stubborn muscle makes up its mind, / fastens to an unresponsive rock . . .bumps to its destiny / . . .how does it dare to hazard / this amazing rainbow?” (23). The smallest flycatcher doggedly maintains her nest above the slamming door because, without taking chances, there will be no web formed, no design accomplished. Meyn’srich understanding of coexis­ tence grows deeper with subsequent readings, a tribute to Ahsahta Press’s nomination for the 1988 Pushcart Prize. DEBORAH CLIFFORD GESSAMAN Logan, Utah Blossoms& Bones: On the Life and Work of Georgia O’Keeffe. ByChristopher Buckley. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1988. 56 pages, $7.95 paper.) The closing lines of the last poem in Christopher Buckley’s new volume speak with the voice of the painter in old age: “My star-white bolt of hair unwinds / toward the deep rose of space, / its spinning rinds, / and what 192 Western American Literature shells beach up from this / hard-hewn body’s shore, say / I made this, lived here, and more.” With this volume Buckley emerges as a significant voice in contemporary American poetry. The pervasive western setting and influence ofO’Keeffe’swork are freshly captured in poetry: “No one takes the absence—/ into account the way I do— / . . . Put right, one part of loss / counterpoints the next, leaves us / much to see... .” In these gem-like poems the poet confines himself to a contemplation of the painter’s work and subjects. In lesser hands such an attempt might lead to the private verse that plagues so much poetry today, but Buckley achieves a corresponding hardness, a sparseness and cleanliness of shapes and color. The poems’ images and epiphanies vary like the incredible hues of a western sky, from: “For now, these hills lift / like hands—implicit / in their praise of nothing / more than earth and air, / and so remind me that / longing and acceptance / are equal parts of prayer” to, “Today, I’m of a different mind, / nothing lives in me / with a bright, hard line, / . . . These are the last shades of evening / and in them you want to breathe out / with everything you have / and hold on to the burning.” O’Keeffe recounts that, “after careful thinking I decided that I wasn’t going to spend my life doing what had already been done.” Buckley, in this exquisite volume, also leaves the beaten track and opens some pristine vistas for readers: “I offer this land / in its hearted shades, / the...

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