Infused with Mediterranean landscapes, the poems of Litanies Near Water, Paula Closson Buck's second collection, probe the world through language that acts sometimes like a divining rod and sometimes like a lightning rod. Elegant meditative lyrics such as ""You Cannot Love the Wind"" and ""Theory of an Impersonal God"" answer to politically alert poems like ""Monk Killed by Tractor in Bid to Dodge Police."" Ultimately, in Buck's deft hand, the lyrical quest for understanding becomes a form of diplomacy between the physical and the metaphysical, between instances of beauty and the violence that threatens daily.

From Last Days: ""The waiter unbuttonshis white shirt briskly, // pulls until it billowsand the tails fly free, // then wipes the tables clean. // I am driving the mountain road // behind a farmer's pickup. // One cow rides supine in the back; // from the two who straddle her, // thrown on the curves, a rearleg splays out over the bed. // I lay on the horn, follow at a distance. // I weep, I linger these last days, // knowing what I know. // On a jag of sadness // for things that happen once // or not at all, or that never should, // I am eating with the lights off, // the crush of jasmine // so sweet I can't think straight.