Earth, Mercy

In her new collection, Earth, Mercy, Mary Rose O'Reilley sifts through the debris of human habitation -- pink thong sandals, curlers, broken televisions -- looking for a kind of junkyard grace: 'Holiness enters again / turquoise fins, and the Cessna's carapace / lifts on its wind.' The first poem, 'Genesis,' locates the reader in Edenic time, 'in that humid and green / arrival,' while the last, 'Watching the End of the World from Hovland, Minnesota,' gives nature a final word: 'Morels on goat prairie gloat / in their blue light. Spruce / speaking of green on green.' Between these points, any poem offers a threshold over which something unexpected may pass -- a ghost, an angel, or the yap of an insouciant dog alerting us to apocalypse. Against all that threatens our survival, Earth, Mercy asserts the beauty of our poignantly sensual life.