MURAL ON SECOND AVENUE

Though only one of the 17 poems here is new, by being paired to Karas’s intimate, generic street and parkscapes, all shine in handsome new settings. Moore writes of snow and rain, of how “roofs / design a sky,” of the pleasures of window shopping and kite flying, of the right way to round a corner, of the glories of a bridge by night and a mural filled with exotic animals by day. Meanwhile, the moon gleams, passersby chat on streets narrow or wide, children dash across a grassy meadow, a skeletal skyscraper rears up to the clouds, and pigeons—“city folk / content / to live with concrete / and cement,”—cluster hopefully near an empty trash can, while a young observer contemplates a leafless tree. Conveying an idyllic but never sugary view of urban life, this gathering not only marks a strong debut for the illustrator, but highlights the timeless quality of so much of Moore’s poetry. (Poetry. 5-9)