An Animal of the Sixth Day (Walt McDonald First-Book Series in Poetry)

There is such excitement and joy in the poems of Laura Fargas―a rush to embrace the earth, an exuberant "giddy greed" for life. "I like the voice, the spirit I find in her poems," says Walter McDonald. "She accepts and celebrates the rich possibilities and, even with the risks and limitations of all, insists that living on this earth is splendid."

Grass the Fine Body Hairs of Earth

My shorthand for it is passion is holy
We can live inside the lilies-of-the-field text.
Watching gulls startle off the ground
as if hundreds of lashing wings are our native air.
Breathe in wings, exhale speckled orange wildflowers.
eyes, elbows, tears: suns, mountains, rivers.
Lovemaking rings with hosannas.

"Through the doors of her poems the reader enters into a multifaceted and clarified knowledge―of self, of others, of this widely inhabited and passionate earth."―Jane Hirshfield

"Visceral beauty with a calm, cool center, the work of a mature and gifted poet . . ."―Toi Derricotte

Between Angels

Between the angels who peel our hearts
and the ones gnawing steadily inward
comes the stolid oath that holds us fast
to the world of apple and fire.
And the heart wants something to be kind to,
even if only a fish to sprinkle
crumbs on the water for once or twice a day.
I like it when the sky says where have you been?
Housed in a fist, I explain, stuck inside
somebody's movie. Have I missed too many clouds
to ever catch up? ("I like it when")