Water, wood, metal, stone, salt, cotton--these are some of the everyday talismans that Maureen Hynes encounters on her journey through Harm’s Way. A soldier’s gold fountain pen, like the war itself, lies buried for decades; the corrugated metal and glass shattered across the Australian outback teach her a new way to look at landscape; the silk of an old parachute recalls her first lesson in longing, and even the ribbed cotton of new undershirts sparks a poignant grief.
In this, her remarkably deft second collection of poems, Hynes takes us travelling on a road signposted with the dangers and fears we encounter in the larger world and which intersects with our most private moments and memories. But Harm’s Way is also a shared journey fueled by a meticulous search for hope, compassion and courage, for √£the molecular level of kindness.√§ The intensity of our personal engagement with the world and with others, suggests Hynes, both heightens the journey’s menace and redeems its pain.