Melancholic visionary of history, prophecy, death, and life. Sound like the definition of “poet”? Here is Nick Hilbourn’s new chapbook of poems, leading us into the darkness and urging us to breathe deeply what it has to teach.

Early in the morning they set out to write 
down the body of god from clues he’d left there. 
Westward movement and leaving hints in the air, bright 
language of rocks and foliage, in bare 
expanses of bleached sand and rock and once, sitting 
burning white holes in the pelagic night sky 
over a desert where all directions bled 
into one another and it became clear, 
those early place writers, their noble mission: 
the writing of the land was not mere copy, 
but a divine act: they saw a new Bible 
started at Plymouth Rock, the Revolution – 
once that arises around you, you see it 
everywhere you go. 

- excerpted from "Τόποςγραφία" 
  (cycle of three sonnets and twelve tankas)