Spirit of Place: Earth, Wind, Sky and Water

An injured dragonfly is picked from a car grill and placed on a rock to recuperate, only to materialize at a distant trailhead to usher the hiker toward a set of ancient pictographs he might have otherwise missed. This is the spiritual world of Michael Leeb, who captures his outdoor experiences in this collection of poetry. He contemplates the magpies song as winter approaches, and reveals how the private courtship of two crows makes him avert his eyes. The poems in this collection ring with deep appreciation for indigenous culture and history, and how they were formed by the land itself. A reverence for those who came first, and the effects of time and natural forces like wind and water in shaping the natural world, are evident in Michaels work. Leebs narratives get us off the couch and into hiking shoes, or a canoe, to appreciate the wild environment of southern Alberta that persists around us. He tells us to LOOK closer and SEE how crystallized salt on dark basalt stone looks like frost flowers. And how the Seven Sisters stone monoliths of the Crowsnest Pass resemble Stonehenge. His knowledge of paleogeography and geomorphology enlighten us as to how natural formations came to be over time in poems poignant with the interplay of nature and spirituality.