Maybe I am an Owl – with all knowing eyes and a scowl

Who could fly at night

Give people and mice a fright

(Barbara Mercer)  

Wait for the early owl.

(Thomas Eliot)  

“Will she be a witch”? Yes, certainly! And it (the book) is full of “unlikely – karmic surprises”. All black and white cats meeting her in Millington Street know it. For she doesn’t write poetic books, but she more likely learns to read with the fingertips of spherical music containing sacral ornaments of poetry. Her art of poetry reminds one more of the secretly seismic stratigraphy of words, the incomprehensible tomography of sound, than literature usually does. Storm music of the Moon-Sun and the conjuration of magical words: “Through laughter – tears – hopes – fears”... Barbara Mercer! – the mystical Mercer: the most exquisite “tissue of the Graceful Word” for the elite. And it simultaneously means to suggest – that which quiets the storm of poetry – and is urged “to plumb the mystery”:  

As the golden eye

Of the

Peregrine Falcon

We see beyond

Into the past

Into the future  

Barbara Mer�er never asserts, doesn’t give ready answers (sign: !), but as ancient Pythia, insinuating and using deep interrogation (sign: ?). Her poetic work of departure – “little red book of poetry” – under different covers, always thinks: “Secrets”, “Mystic Wills”. Always: “Ready to reveal/Deeply held secrets”. And it is not simply “a Victorian throwback”, but the evidence of triumph, laughter and the pursuit of Eternally Young Blood:  

Sharing the golden elixir

Of life – immortality

Philosopher’s stone

The alchemy  

So, what does her alchemical “the golden eye” see?  

Behind – bending in front of

Mountainous black clouds

Shocking everything  

Shocking… everything is shocking! The sensual luxury of her poetry is necessary by design – “frenzied whirling”! Furious Thunder Storm! Probably, it is precisely therefore – “poets collide”. A grand battle of Thunder and Lightning – there ever since the early childhood has secretly bewitched Barbara Mercer: her “a small red tattooed heart”! Yes, precisely so: the furious and severe Storm of Spirit is necessary for the most vulnerable Heart, the most sensitive Soul. What for? Because in the unknown Heavenly Garden “deep red roses” blossomed eternally. Because the young love of Spring triumphed over the Fury of Winter – frightening even the Deity of Revenge!  

The challenge of severe winter storm

To show our hardy heritage

As it is in our Canadian veins