Something Grazes Our Hair: Poems

Probing the depths of consciousness, Marks ( Lines ) delivers a remarkably evocative vision of the transcendent possibilities of the heart and soul. Suffused with poignant feeling, these poems speak, by way of detailing fluctuations in both human nature and in the natural world, of the mysteries of ``living and dying,'' for, according to the poet, ``there's no other conversation.'' In ``November Woods,'' a ``Gray sky, mist, the trees black and wet'' signal ``A day of unknowing, of knowing I do not know, / a day of uncertainty, / the day of my life.'' Love often brings torment and extreme sadness. The poet touches his lover and feels ``a melancholy inside our fingers / like the small rain falling / down past the windows.'' Yet desire and its fulfillment are somehow ameliorating. In ``Cold Places,'' with the ``heaviness of aging'' pressing down hard upon the poet, he finds comfort and forgiveness in the sight and scent of his sleeping lover. Marks's imagery is beautifully nuanced and precise, giving readers a primordial sense of the place of the human heart amidst the cycles of nature. (Sept.)