Birth Certificate: Selected Poems

Birth and being mark the poems in this second collection by philosopher John Valentine, who meditates on the nature of humanity and existence.

Each verse is a metaphysical musing, an inquiry without an "I" and a dialogue in silence.

Contemplating our ever-entwined virtues and vices, Birth Certificate dwells on the divine and tragic, the spirited and frail, to create an image of the ideal -- an ephemeral mandala offering order amid "displacement in the sea of beings" -- only to be swept away with the breath and water of time.