Lewis (In a Spring Garden) asks readers to contemplate the world as a series of spaces filled with imagery, to consider the sky as "a field for the sun" and "a sea for the moon" and the earth as "hills bending, waters gathering, seeds opening." A child's dream in the final scene brings earth and sky together. The hypnotic mood inspires Frasier's (On the Day You Were Born) elaborately graphic cut-paper illustrations arranged in quilt-like spreads. The sun becomes an interlocking pattern of sunflowers, small plants, rays and whorls in one spread; in another, the sky swirls in a giant spiral of flying birds ("There—/ in the space of the sky/ are paths of birds,/ rivers of air,/ gardens/ of light"). Verbal and visual cues throughout keep readers on track throughout this meditation: Lewis repeatedly uses "here" and "there," as if to indicate where to focus one's attention, and Frasier repeats her nature motifs from picture to picture (the stylized birds, for example, appear both in flight and perching) in a rhythmic ode to nature. All ages. (Apr.)
