Paul Éluard writes, "There is another world and it is in this one." Within these worlds, we travel outward and inward, straddling our lives' oppositions: parental/relationship struggle and loss, home and away, isolation and reconnection, the spiritual/mystical realm and physicality-always balancing grief and reemergence, hello and goodbye. The hybrid nature of Linda Parsons' sixth collection,
Valediction
, with poems, diptychs, and micro essays, brings those oppositions into focus and reconciliation and grounds her in the earth under her feet, especially in her gardening meditations. In this striving, we are balanced and grounded with her as she lifts the veil on what it means to live and create fully, even in the face of impermanence.