Nothing Is Stationary

A poetic meditation on impermanence--biological, emotional, and spiritual.

The poems in Joanne Esser's Nothing Is Stationary proclaim, sometimes reluctantly, that change is a biological constant, an emotional condition, and a spiritual conundrum. Even as they reflect on the past and live fully in the present, Esser's words leave room for things still taking shape--like how moving water shapes stone, how a great tree's shadow shifts across the grass almost imperceptibly over the course of minutes, hours, a whole day. These poems observe the tilted, spinning planet and all the things, the animals, the people--dear ones and strangers--that hold onto it. And they glimpse the self as it watches itself weather, age. Even as unstable as this world can be, when the poet pays attention, life keeps offering what is needed.