Poetry at Veery Books

I met Victoria Bouroncle, nee Edwards, now Tester, while we were both studying creative writing at the University of Houston in the 1990s. Her book of poems, Miracles of Sainted Earth (University of New Mexico Press, 2002) just arrived on my desk, a gift from Veery Books. Here is one of the poems:









Bill Evans Lake, 1999

The last cold Sunday of the millenium
we fished among the waterweeds and the chamiso.

My son looked into the gold
jewel eye of the black duck
and the secret eye of the crane
and swore that he'd live, too.

I prayed every dark road in him
would lead to a place like this:

where he must have been before.

Not the two empty beers in an old fire.
Or the shirt sleeve the other boy cut away with a knife

so he could take a pure animal shit
behind the junipers.

Or maybe those, too.

I'm talking about deep water
ringed by mountains, and delighted
creatures staring back and willing to live

under the same sun, the same shadows.