And Short the Season

A poet of piercing revelations and arresting imagery, Kumin is "unforgettable, indispensable" (New York Times Book Review). In And Short the Season she muses on mortality: her own and that of the earth. Always deeply personal, always political, these poems blend myth and modernity, fecundity and death, and the violence and tenderness of humankind. From "Whereof the Gift Is Small"

And short the season, first rubythroat
in the fading lilacs, alyssum in bloom,
a honeybee bumbling in the bleeding heart
on my gelding's grave while beetles swarm
him underground. Wet feet, wet cuffs,
little flecks of buttercup on my sneaker toes,
bluets, violets crowding out the tufts
of rich new grass the horses nose
and nibble like sleepwalkers held fast-
brittle beauty-might this be the last?