At The Edge Of The Orchard Country

This collection about farm country at the base of the mountains in North Carolina uses aspects of farm life to carry weighty themes of cyclical obliteration and regeneration, the constancy and power of nature that ties us together through it all, and the deep ancestral ties we share by virtue of sharing in the sustenance of that land. In one poem, Morgan explains how old barns are burned to the grown to make room for more land, and the nails are all that is kept: “As though all husbandry and home/were carried in that charred handful/of iron stitches, blacksmithed chromosomes/that link distant generations.”

At once rugged and sensitive, Morgan writes beautifully about the intersection of man and nature, and how wonderful and complex “simple” farm life can be when you look at it from the right angle; he even dedicates a whole poem to the smallest particles of dust catching light: “Each/particle is an opal angel/too small to see but in the glare/of this annunciation.”

My friend Kate, who went to Cornell (where Morgan is a professor), dropped off this book for me and I'm glad she did; it's an escape into a different time and place that has you breathing manure and fresh grain, seeing dancing particles and twinkling fireflies and explosive fireworks, and feeling a return to the earth.