Many of the poems in the first few sections of Charles Bachman’s If Ariel Danced on the Moon deal with nature. Bachman’s poet is not just a detached observer. He is one who empathizes deeply and collaborates with the natural world.

There are poems about Native American beings: Mother Earth, the Great Turtle, Coyote and Rabbit. There is also a poem about the Native American hero Okteondon. Okteondon decides to kill the “Otgont” — spirits who have the power to destroy human beings. The poem’s diction is rich, the imagery evocative of Native American religion in its invocation of a spirit-world involving people as well as natural entities.

Deep in his mind he sensed in all that his destiny

was curving around to complete the circle broken

by Otgont evil, reuniting those who had been lost…

Some of the poems in the later sections of the book are about more familiar subjects — the family cat, Patches, for instance, is the subject of a funny, rhyming, eponymous poem which delights in playing on words:

We have a calico cat whose fur

is comprised entirely of batches

of reddish black rust and white

and thus we call her Patches.

Sometimes when she is fiery

I like to call her Matches…

Bachman’s language frequently transforms his subjects, giving them greater depth and breadth, as in the poem “Deep In Okteondon’s Spirit,” where images such as the “broken hoop” seem to carry sacred meanings.

…and that this circle would also become

a force which far, far into the future

could repair the broken hoop of all his people.

The combination of serious poems on Native American themes and humorous poems with traditional rhyming schemes in the later sections makes for a delightfully varied read.

—linda benninghoff