The Meandering

"The Meandering" is Mike Stone's sixth book of poetry. It contains all new poems covering the years from 2020 to 2021. It represents a slow, seemingly purposeless movement, and a stopping to notice people and things that he might not have noticed before. Subjects that were urgent before swap places with subjects that seem more worthy of notice and appreciation now. "A Good Scritching" and "Interpretations of Silence" are meditations on his dog, Daisy, her practical attitude and what she loved. "Rehearsal" is about how we leave our bodies behind in dreams and death. "Clocks" is about how poorly clocks measure our time. "You Have to Know the Language" is about the time when language was our world and our mind. "A Psalm for our Times" is a modern prayer we might say while walking through the city streets at night. "The Fog Rolls in" describes our experience of our diminishing cognitive faculties. "Moving On" is about the inability to move on until grief loosens its grip.