Nature's Bookends (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781916830349)

"Patricia M Osborne's new collection is deeply meditative, page after page of soothing poems that calm the spirit. Be inspired by the yew, the silver birch and the ancient oak. Find tranquility as you listen to the lullaby of waves at the shoreline. Be hopeful as you breathe in the scents of heather, rose and cinnamon. A prayer to the natural world, a copy should be at every bedside."

"Nature's Bookends is a hymn to our environment. In deceptively artless poems, in which form and meaning are in perfect harmony, Patricia M Osborne evokes the spectacle of nature, capturing its sensory delights that have the capacity both to excite the observer and to bring comfort to the troubled. At a time of climate emergency, this is a collection that provides an engaging balance to the media's panic-inducing portrayal of nature as violent and destructive. This is nature in all its benign glory, offering the reader an alternative compelling reason for ensuring we do everything possible to preserve it."

"Encased between dawn's mandarin sky and a beetroot-coated dusk, Nature's Bookends is a poetic whirling dervish, a cornucopia of nature's creativity and chaos penned against the nature of humanity itself and its forgetfulness of what it is to simply rise, fall and be at one with the breeze. In this plenteous offering, Osborne roots us in the soil so as to witness the force of nature in place of the fight of the Earth's weary inhabitants. This remarkable collection, mindful of the ground, invites the reader to sink into warm sand and be reborn."

"Nature's Bookends reads like a well-played day of raga music that opens with sunrise. Poet Patricia M Osborne's intimate collection guides us into a recognition of our place in grander scheme of the world's natural order. We're encouraged to breathe along with her, take in the colours and views; let them hold us as we are meant to be held, with awe and care.

She suggests we be "mindful of the ground" where we stand. Listen wholeheartedly to the music we hear, manmade or not, and let it "sing in unison/with the beat of my heart."

As the 18-poem body of work reveals, just as ragas do the melodic moods of day, the contemplative observations include an afternoon beneath a majestic canopy of trees and the midday splash of rain puddles. Coming full circle, as bookends, the start of day begins with:

"the morning show./A ball of fire rises, /strikes docile waves, /amber rollers form." and closes with: "a bloodshot sphere/sinks into the sea, /turns the sky beetroot, /purpling the waves."

The treasures in Nature's Bookends are plenty, and also beautifully written. More importantly, easy to understand, because they're our treasures too."