Dragons

Johnston’s lyrical eighth collection (after Mosses and Lichens) explores the present and past with effortless rhyme and gentle music. Sound is crucial to these poems and is also, often, the subject matter itself. He references bird calls: the “sour whistle” of a white-throated sparrow—“each bird a name, each name a tune/ to whistle as you walk along/ preoccupied with the rise and fall/ of each reflexive, raucous call.” Johnston embraces traditional forms, even as he admits, “These days, authorities dismiss/ the subtle circuitries of rhyme/ as relics of another time.” Inspiration comes from a morning dog walk, J. Alfred Prufrock, troubadours, Horace, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. One poem narrates the Greek myth of Baucis and Philemon, an elderly couple who unknowingly welcomed Zeus and Hermes into their home. After giving the gods a meal, “their old house, snug for only two,/ transformed into a temple:/ forked posts swelled to columns,/ thatch glittered as though gilded,/ doors hardened into bronze/ chased with friezes, and dirt floors/ metamorphosed into marble.” The poem lingers in the details of the modest space: wooden wine bowls, a wobbly table, and the simple, nourishing meal. These poems are well wrought and moving, each filled with a “mild expectancy” that connects the mundane with the awe that gives life meaning. (Mar.)