Half Wild is spiritual biography wound backwards, spiraling into the world
rather than out of it. Though it reflects on the paradoxes of our violent
times, Mary Rose O'Reilley's collection hangs on to life like the bee "up
to his hips in love" who "will fall asleep in the snow" and "wake up still
kissing his flower." In O'Reilley's poems, human, animal, and mineral
creations interpenetrate and share surreal conversation -- even stones
exchange stories of "hot times in the magma" and animals are listened to
intently. Here sacred inquiry is grounded in a passion for the natural
world, resolving questions through lyric, erotic, and sensual response. The
poems of Half Wild revel in desire and longing as instruments of
theological critique.You were the part of methat gave itself to
death.Sometimes I dream of eyes,sealed with a membraneof unknowinglike a
mystic's veil,that open to my glance without surprise.Sometimes I dreamof
perfect understanding.Sometimes I snatchat hands that seem to seekas
through a caul.Sometimes I wakenWith an infant's shriek. -- from "Twin"