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ABOUT Jacqueline Kolosov

Jacqueline Kolosov's poetry collections include Vago (Lewis-Clark, 2007) and Modigliani's Muse (TurningPoint, 2009). Memory of Blue is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in early 2013. Also a prose writer, she has written several novels for young adults, most recently A Sweet Disorder (Hyperion, 2009) and has published essays and stories in journals and anthologies including Shenandoah, Western Humanities Review, and North Dakota Review. She lives with her husband, five-year-old daughter, and three gregarious dogs in West Texas.

Hourglass, as one might expect from the title, is about movement through time, but is also, as fine art is, equal to much more than just that "aboutness." This small book is an integrated examination of who we are as we make major transitions, have children, confront our own morality, consider art and life. The poems are exceptional, work on several levels, let us in on Kolosov's views of art in an examined life. The advantage of a small book (even with large ideas) like this is that the poet can work on a single, integrated theme and give it the attention it deserves. Kolosov does this in Hourglass and the result is worth several readings.

Two Happinesses

Take this afternoon's silver-gray light
of maple branching towards evening ;
our cat, ink-dark, skittering across the grass.
Somewhere deep within the winter-sleep of yards,
a dog barks. And within the mirror's triptych,
the flickering of advent candle,
green stemmed narcissus rising from a glass.

And at the same time, I'm thinking
of leaving a path of breadcrumbs
along a cobbled street near the Musée Rodin;
in my basket, the remains of a seed-flecked baguette,
an untouched round of cheese, purple grapes.

Two happinesses coming together, two comforts.
Like the childhood shine of my grandmother's
amethyst worn beside this rose gold wedding ring.
Just now, the light beyond the windows
is blue as the stained glass of Chartres,
cathedral I haven't seen in fifteen years.

Still the prayers of the white tapers.
Still the ascent of pigeons, higher, higher,
until they seem one with the belfry's rafters.
Still a glass so impossibly blue as to silence
the sands of the centuries' hourglass.

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1997-2003
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