Watermelon Kindness

from “North of 60”
Angels are aliens in spaceships. Angels descend
and eagles soar. I am not an eagle. If I were an angel I would descend
and give you of the bread of happiness
the salt of anger
& the message you already know better than I know:
the moon & the lakes & the hills
are forever.

The much-anticipated Watermelon Kindness, David Donnell’s first new collection in six years, comes from a part of the country that’s somewhere between Archie Bunker and Dale Peck — a contentious, but genial place.

With more range than any other contemporary poet, Donnell ponders questions of art, history, and psychology while reveling in the sensory and all that makes us real. Whether exploring the modus operandi of other writers or paralleling the trajectory of a satellite with everyday occurrences like lost money, badly ended love affairs, or political disappointment, Watermelon Kindness is the Roman padda, a tough individual loaf approximately the size of your hand. Always concerned with what’s most nourishing — why we’re as crazy as we are crazy — it’s forty percent crust, because crust is almost always the best of it.