Everything in the Universe

Auto mechanics and millipedes, auctioneers and citrus longhorn beetles, shimmer into focus the gossamer web that connects Everything in the Universe. Amy Wright's second poetry collection calls attention to treehoppers, buck moths, deer ticks, and other invertebrate survivalists who sound across lawns and canopies, whose startling biodiversity is, as E.O. Wilson says, "all we have." As nations gather to discuss brown-clouded horizons, Wright offers alternatives to covering eyes and ears against eminent realities. When we open the windows, linger over a young mantis climbing toward the door knob, sit still long enough for a hawk moth to light near us, we sense the scope of this time and place we inhabit. Astounded by wonder, we act differently. We make discoveries we never could have imagined-zebra crickets, cobra lilies, love for our in-laws. We might even find it in our hearts to forgive our megalomaniac family, as seen by elders who saw us move into the neighborhood. Who hum and sing and bury us when we're gone.