Devreaux Baker is one of the great poets of the Mendocino coast. How to speak of her, the beauty and power of her words, when you've been inspired by her for most of your writing life? Now she gifts us with a startling new book. Beyond the Circumstance of Sight is not about nature, it is from nature. "Words move like currents through [her]" - currents from all the past, the tribes, the ancestors, all the future here in the present, all the elements and seasons. "The left-behind voices bleed" the personal, great love, great sex with Great nature, Great universe, all the questions "where did we come from, where are we headed," into prayers, into sex with sky, rain, wind, birds, trees, rivers, oceans. The haunting lovemaking throughout of the couple is "the grammar of light," the rhythm of the seasons, "the alto from reverberations of the Big Bang," "a text burning out words /onto your body." "Insatiable with longing and filled with the ovaries of stars," ever-present Death is a major theme but, stunningly, not from dread or horror, not from tragedy or pain, but in embrace, almost joy in the terrifying Mystery. Humor is here too - cosmic humor! This life, this tango "the purse of your pelvis" "into the face of infinity."

The voice trapped at the bottom of the well
Has your face, is waiting to be lifted to the surface
To become your song
. . . . .
The world is famished for us
With a hunger greater than sex.
Sharon Doubiago, Love on the Streets, Selected and New Poems