The Directions to Blue Willow

A Late Offering

But today is different.
I recognize I can’t go on
doing this alone.

Today he will need God. That’s the man on his knees, praying to something or someone as vast as the dark and as quiet as the heat coming on. It’s what’s left when time fades to a stop, and words have all fallen from the trees.
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Reader Comments:

Peterson’s new offering, The Directions to Blue Willow, is a compelling, powerful, and at times exquisite testament to the life of the spirit. Each poem is precisely at the heart of a man searching his soul for a way home.
—Sharon Butler, l’aluna di Abril

The poems in Peterson’s latest are among the man’s best. Here he returns to a recurring theme: At what point am I acceptable before God? But now as he ages, the poems are lean and simple, and the search made clear.
—Andy Vinca,
poet-proprietor, Poets’ Warehouse

I can’t shake the image of Masaccio’s fresco of the Holy Trinity. At the base a skeleton lies upon a sarcophagus beneath the inscription: I was what you are, and what I am you shall become.

“Every book is a confession,” says the poet, and we the priests ready to offer absolution or exact an appropriate penance. But soon we note that each poem is a bead on the rosary of his life, and there has been penance aplenty. Perhaps the birds that visit carry the desired pardon, or his trips to Blue Willow may provide moments of peace. With each offering he extends his naked hand and we are left to wonder who will answer.

—Barbara D. Crone, artist & poet