Delights & Shadows

Retired life insurance executive Ted Kooser is better known as the author of Sure Signs and nine other books of poems, as well as of the recent memoir Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemia Alps than for policies sold. Divided into four sections, these 59 poems take us from time ""Walking on Tiptoe"" and ""At the Cancer Clinic"" to ""A Jar of Buttons,"" ""A Box of Pastels"" and ""A Glimpse of the Eternal"": ""Just now,/ a sparrow lighted/ on a pine bough/ right outside/ my bedroom window/ and a puff/ of yellow pollen/ flew away.""