Bread is a common symbol of sustenance

It satisfies better than cheese or meat

On this book's cover, a broken loaf, bare hands

An image that seems to say “here, take eat”

This is a body of work, a collection

Of memories of people, place and time

Feelings freed by enjambing reflections

Into tight meter and unslanted rhyme



After fifty pages I yearned to know

Who're L.S.J. and G.M.P. et al.?

So I mulled and culled the multi-grained dough

'Til I came to know some of them quite well



My favorite poem was one from boyhood

Hopping and stopping a departing train

The ones about nature were also good

Pileated woodpeckers, acid rain

That dying dog whose "brown eyes lost their clown"

And the coda for readers and writers

Hints for getting our intimations down

On paper arranged in ways that delight us



Some might enjoy (more than I) those poems based

On fringe physics if not science fiction

Or Sumerian texts as paraphrased

In Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchen

Ancient god-astronauts from outer space?

I'd rather read Christopher Hitchens



Appended find explanatory notes

Ten questions about our roots on this globe

And expert advice for fellow poets

About how to unleash the dextral lobe