Among Floating Duckweed

First published in Woodnotes #25, Summer 1995, page 43.

Among Floating Duckweed by Bruce Ross. HMS Press, 1994, 52 pages, paperback, 5½ by 8½ inches. $8.00 postpaid from the author at 222 Culver Road, Rochester, New York 14607 [address no longer correct]. Set off by four sumi-e bird illustrations by Murray David Ross, the 104 poems in this book appear spaciously at one, two, or three per page, all deftly centered in nature. As samples, the book’s first and last poems:

spring chill—

on short legs the sparrow

sips from Lake Ontario

morning rain . . .

the long black line

of winter ducks