Fresh Peaches, Fireworks, and Guns

Platt's first collection is so full of vitality and emotion that the lines seem either to weep or explode: ``The days are deciduous. / They keep falling, / dead leaves / the wind blows / down the street / and scatters, or heaps / into windrows, / which I walk through / kicking the leaves / so they crackle and spark / under my shoes.'' He helps us to feel the edges and curves of letters on the tongue, the lyric ``grit of words.'' As the title suggests, Platt would join all the world together in surprising juxtaposition and wait to see what happens: ``For sale, fresh peaches / and slide-action Remingtons, / tempered steel and bruisable fruit, a collision / collusion that makes / me feel suddenly fragile, a dissonance as pure / as Mozart's, two notes / never put together until now and now forever / inextricable.'' He sings with delight of the Midwest--the tarred superhighways and endless acres of farmland. And with a surplus of compassion, Platt prays, believes, remembers, glories; nothing is too insignificant to be revered, as in these lines from ``Short Mass for My Grandfather'': ``I bow down to the scarecrow / dressed in Grandfather's best shirt / worn through at the elbows. / Lord of Cornfields, Lord of Crows, / watch over us, / your face / rained away.'' This is a wide-eyed appreciation of the universe. (Apr.)