Tonight's Quiet (Bright Hill Press Poetry Award, 20)

In Constance Norgren's collection TONIGHT'S QUIET, worries go hand in hand with good luck, everyday amazement with misfortune, shadows and the encroaching darkness with next day's sunlight. Here we are, "the carriers of things / with gravity pushing or pulling," washing cars, waiting in lines, alone by the lit Christmas tree, crossing crowded streets to get to work, looking out of windows - human beings engaged in the small, important activities that become their lives. Here there is safety in darkness, knowledge to be gained in a lake's center at midnight, the death of parents, children who must grow and go. What is constant is each other. "Today, on the boardwalk the old ones bundled in coats sit. / Four people walk on the beach next to the waves lapping. / More, all the time."