Against Distance

In Peter Makuck's Against Distance, nature is both a reprieve and a danger. Here, various landscapes—oceans, inlets, rivers, foothills, deserts—pressure and test human relationships. In language full of power and surprise, Makuck illuminates nature's weather and the weather of the human spirit.

Catsail

Out on the edge
between ocean and a sky
that swallows light,
     red, yellow, and green,
bright as a foreign flag,
it catches the wind
and something inside
about color
the secret of difference,
how it changes
what we are,
makes us feel
we could walk out
on that watery sunpath
into another country
where, like children,
we would do little but
play with the quiet
and learn our colors again.