Quicksilver of the Heart

Invite these poems to companion your heart and let them stretch your soul. Brenda's spare, simple words say big things. In this very intimate collection we are offered messages of life's mysteries in a language as clear as any fine spiritual direction. Throbbing through the poems is her Celtic sensibility, offered in the calm dialect of a sagacious heart bred to thrive in Newfoundland weather. Taken as talismans of transformation, these poems beg rereading, like stories retold over strong tea to take off the chill and to strengthen the heart. We are whispered secret courage to engage life, open-eyed and ready. The stanzas give voice to the quiet satisfactions of honest, open-hearted awareness and offer a traveler's guide into a soulscape both delicate and wild. From a knowing of winter's graced grit to the full out exhilaration of the greening again spring, Brenda opens to us the experience of a woman stepping into elder-hood well versed in living close to the heart of things. Look, she says to us, despite any initial evidence to the contrary, small moments are thresholds into soul size transformations and no less than life's best gift. (Gabriele Uhlein OSF, author and artist, Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen)