a review by Byron Hoot

Sanctity: Poems from Northern Appalachia, by Patricia Thrushart, calls to those who know the woods and to those who have forgotten that call within themselves.  In a time of political and societal upheaval, of fake news and conspiracy theories, Thrushart’s poems remind us of one the most often forgotten verities of life – Nature.

And the willing lessons that are being offered in the wordless reality of Nature.

There are four sections to this volume: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  In these precise, short-lined poems, we are given to see into, to be in the seasons and their various expressions not of one thing but varied beauty and nuances and moods of each.  Meditations on what Nature is, who we are, and how we are not apart from Nature but a part of it.

Nature gives. We nurture what we choose.

Here is the poem the volume is named after.

Sanctity

                    Just after dawn,
                   the golden slant of light,
                   fog disentangling from high branches,
                the smell of coming heat,
,                  of warming loam,         
                  of seeds rooting,
                  buds breaking open
                  like the heart 
                  heart hungry for hope, for healing,
                  for all that is holy in a portion of soil
                  or in that slant of light
                 under lifting fog –
                 a moment 
                 of sanctity. 

You understand why this is a book to add to your home. Sanctity: noun, the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly. If poetry is seeing things are they simply, directly are, then you’ll have a treasure trove in your hand when you read these poems.
  
Thrushart reminds us of the sanctity we are in.  How valuable Nature is, how vulnerable we are without her.

Buy the book. Read the poems and remember, recall, go to the woods again, at least through the poems of Sanctity.