Two Trees: Poems

This fourth collection of Voight's poetry is a mix of song and sigh, wisdom and simplicity, reminiscent of the work of both Frost and Bishop. Voigt ( Claiming Kin ) is fascinated by the dualities of childhood and adulthood, mortality and immortality, humanity's fall from grace and innocence and our constant struggle to impose a sense of order, perhaps in the attempt to recover Edenic bliss. Through the use of fugue-like ``variations,'' Voight discloses and veils--at first setting the poem at a distance, harkening, then gradually manipulating imagery to produce a range of interpretation. This works superbly in ``At the Piano'' and ``First Song,'' yet much less so in some other attempts. ``Soft Cloud Passing'' reveals Voigt's virtuosity, her mastery of rhythm and her gift for exquisitely depicting landscapes: ``The plucked fields, / the bushes, spent and brittle, the brown thatch on the forest floor / swoon beneath the gathered layers of gauze / before the earth is dragged once more into blossom.'' She sings, stirs and wakes the reader; she guides us in a modest, detailed manner and exposes the humble patterns humans have woven in a chaotic world. Like the wife of the blind man in ``Thorn-Apple,'' Voight is ``the first one up the path.'' Her appointed ``task,'' ``endless and partial,'' is ``willed attention.'' (Sept.)