Summary

“Lucid and Undecipherable Tasks” - This first person, three-stanza poem begins with “& i leaned / against the rock it was the storm / i lay there opened” and continues with a reference to resting in nature in the company of trees, a hawk, an eagle, and the wind, with “lucid and undecipherable tasks all things / become one.” The speaker refers to feeling (his?) breath upon “you,” free and full, “revealed by the moon … the wild sickle swan.” The speaker then describes himself as rising “through the fire” (42).

“The Soldier in the Empty Room” - A subtitle indicates that this poem is “after Rigoberto Gonzalez’ ‘Soldier in Mictlan,” while there is a quote from another poem (by Judita Vaiciunaite) that refers to “the paper count[ing] out the dead / twenty million” (43). The poem itself begins with a description of a soldier lying on...