A vulnerable and honest collection of poems exploring lineage love and the pandemic from one of the most acclaimed poets of his generationquotYou are told to believe in one paradise and then there is the paradise you come to knowquot begins Rick Barot What follows is an account of the rich and thorny valley between those poles Moving the Bones dwells in liminal spacesof love and memory the pandemics singular domesticity a serene cemetery of ancestral plots dawn In precise and tender verse Barot captures the particularities of being in the middle of oneamp8217s life reflecting on the joys and sorrows of the past and confronting the inevitabilities that lie aheadFor Barot this presence of mind is an art of being lost in thought amp8220My mind has a slow metabolism it is slow to understand what anything meansamp8221 he confides amp8220but understands that if you look at something long enough it will have something to say to youamp8221 Appreciating a Rembrandt standing in a Goodwill watching a boy with a flower behind his earamp8212we encounter ephemeral murmurs of meaning everywhere but only by slowing down listening If we take time to notice the enduring insights of daily moments if we praise cherry blossoms lungs and crying we might find it easier to bear the loss of a loved one the sting of solitude the bodyamp8217s declineBy laying bare his own experiences Barot brings us close enough to witness the lyrical work of consciousness Patient and attentive this collection...
