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Uncertainty (The Only Hope We Have)
Bottlecap Press ISBN: 978-1-962390-29-3 Available HERE from the publisher! In this collection, Paula J. Lambert once again turns to birds as central images: the Common Murre, the pigeon, the European Starling. And once again the birds stand for so much more: climate crisis, dystopian existence, species extinction. Uncertainty does indeed read as hope in these poems that read like stories, setting retro sci-fi movies (The Blob and its remake) against Dante’s Inferno; Nikola Tesla against a 9/11 Memorial gone wrong; and modern murmurations against the history of augury—with a nod to Mozart that fits right in. “Who is there,” Lambert asks, “who does not love this world / we’ve all defiled? Who is there, / but us, to save it?” We just might discover that “the strands of our lives made sense all along. / That we and the bright and beautiful birds / don’t have to die, that we all can go on living / and living and living.” It’s a noble thought and not a naive one for, as the poet points out, “Our place in the world has always been / uncertain.” What’s left, she asks, “but to stick together, to sing and to soar where we are, / when we can. […] To trust the sky and rise. / To rise and rise / again.” |