Poet's Press Catalog

BORIA SAX.
THE RAVEN AND THE SUN.

Boria Sax, steeped in animal studies in myth and literature, is not only a teacher and scholar, but also one of our finest lyric poets. This collection of poems and tales, centered around the mysterious world of crows and ravens that exists around us almost unnoticed, demonstrates the universality of the narratives in which animal wisdom plays, as he retells Eastern European and Native American crow/raven tales.

The book is also interspersed with Sax's sensitive lyrics on other topics. Includes two "crow wheel" illustrations by Tom Fitzpatrick.

WHAT IS IT LIKE. . . ?

What is it like to have a woman’s face?
A woman’s body? With a woman’s hand?
No man can step into a woman’s place.
I certainly will never understand.

What is it like to have a woman’s eyes?
I wonder, would a rainbow look the same?
Is it one fabric but with other dyes?
Is it one picture with another frame?

I asked a woman once. She would not say.
She only laughed and touched me on the arm,
Then looked about her in a secret way.
“At least,” I thought, “I’ve not done any harm.”

A woman brings such power to her touch.
How could a man be trusted with so much?

*** ***

OBJECTS

Our universe is the abandoned room
Of a child, filled with dresses, books, and dolls,
Things she outgrew but never threw away —
Broken mirrors, combs with missing teeth,
Chess pieces, buttons, strands of faded yarn. . .

Do objects meditate? Do objects think?
We sometimes love them? Is that love returned?
Photographs, comic books, a lock of hair,
A bird’s nest, a puppet with no strings,
A smashed computer, and a rubber ball,
Lost on a rafter, nearly out of sight.
Bits of glitter, enormous clouds of dust . . .
Waiting for their mistress to return.

*** ***

4000 B.C.

The dead surround them like shy animals,
But they are certain they can live forever.
Whatever happens, they must find a way.

The next thousand years shall pass quickly.
The stones shall keep their oath of silence.
The trees shall go on talking in their sleep.

Men shall spend their days dragging blocks of stone
And their nights in conversation with the dead.
They shall polish daggers behind the city wall.

They shall carve diamonds and drive chariots.
They shall try to imagine that muscular hand
That lifted mountains and arranged the stars.

ISBN 978-0922558438. Published July 2010. 6 x 9 inches, paperback. 82 pages. $13.95. CLICK HERE to order from Amazon.

Also available for $2.00 as a PDF e-book from Payhip. CLICK HERE to order and download.

BACK TO CATALOG MAIN PAGE

Version 24. Updated February 25, 2024.