Traveling Light

Linda Pastan meditates on themes of aging and memory, language and art in this moving collection, where she travels from the Thanksgiving table, a “palimpsest / with traces of the past / showing through,” to Japan, where she dreams in haiku. “Pastan . . . expresses a full range of the possibilities and potencies of the human, feminine voice” (Boston Globe).

from "In the Forest"

The trees are lit

from within like Sabbath candles

before they are snuffed out.

Autumn is such a Jewish season,

the whole minor key of it.

Hear how the wind trembles

through the branches, vibrato

as notes of cello music.