NIGHT OFFICES

Straight from the blurb written by Border Press regarding my newest book of poetry available on amazon.com in a few weeks:

"If you've ever suffered from insomnia or if you're a person who composes nocturnes of any kind during the night hours, Diane Marquart Moore's Night Offices, her nineteenth book of poetry, will "speak to your condition." Moore explores the uses of and the cures for insomnia, famous characters who have suffered from this malady; e.g., W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and Thomas Edison. With characteristic wit and irony, she records the sleeplessness of various family members and friends, including her own propensity to recite the night offices, writing that "in four vigils of the night you wake/with desolation for a pillow./Phantom crucifixions hover--/monsters that pull/your soul from sleep,/peer over the edge of a ceiling fan..." She confesses that no matter where she closes her eyes, "a lightship lowers its anchor in the room."

Paul Marquart, my brother in northern California, rendered the painting for the cover design of Night Offices, and Martin Romero, my grandson, designed the front and back covers.

A sample of the poetry in Night Offices entitled "Opus Dei:"

Sister Elizabeth's slippers,

the feet of prayer,

hurry along sacred corridors

bringing vials of care

between the aisles

of Compline and Lauds,

reciting the night Vigils,

her arms encircling

Sister Lucy, Sister Mary Zita

whose needs demand

God's love and mercy

each hour of the night

against the threatening void,

their souls suspended,

as a saint with callused feet

lights the lamp

for His arrival.

Thanks again to Border Press for launching Night Offices. I might add that another book of poetry, which will contain poems about humanistic botany and photographs of plant life taken by botanist Victoria Sullivan, is in the writing stages. It's entitled Between Plants and People. Most collections of my poetry are listed on amazon.com and on the borderpressbooks.com site. Thanks for reading!