Earth, Mercy

In her new collection, Earth, Mercy, Mary Rose O'Reilley sifts through the debris of human habitation -- pink thong sandals, curlers, broken televisions -- looking for a kind of junkyard grace: "e;Holiness enters again / turquoise fins, and the Cessna's carapace / lifts on its wind."e; The first poem, "e;Genesis,"e; locates the reader in Edenic time, "e;in that humid and green / arrival,"e; while the last, "e;Watching the End of the World from Hovland, Minnesota,"e; gives nature a final word: "e;Morels on goat prairie gloat / in their blue light. Spruce / speaking of green on green."e; Between these points, any poem offers a threshold over which something unexpected may pass -- a ghost, an angel, or the yap of an insouciant dog alerting us to apocalypse. Against all that threatens our survival, Earth, Mercy asserts the beauty of our poignantly sensual life.