{"id":336,"date":"2024-03-04T09:47:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T15:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=336"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:13:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:13:20","slug":"moments-in-place","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/moments-in-place","title":{"rendered":"Moments in Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by Paul B. Roth<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_335 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; \r\n    line-height: 1.42857143 !important;\r\n    border: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n    border-radius: 0px 0px 0 0 !important; \r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tpadding: 15px 18px 15px 18px !important;\r\n\ttext-decoration: none !important;\r\n\tfont-size: 14px !important;\r\n\ttext-align:center !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\noutline: 0px !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:before {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:after {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important ;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\npadding:0px !important ;\r\nmargin:0px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:hover , #tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\n    color: #000000 !important;\r\n    background-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n\t\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a .fa{\r\n\r\nmargin-right:5px !important;\r\n\r\nmargin-left:5px !important;\r\n\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\t\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs a{\r\n\t\t\tbackground-image: none;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-position: 0 0;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-repeat: repeat-x;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n    float: left;\r\n    margin-bottom: -1px !important;\r\n\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_335 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_335 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_335\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_335\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_335_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_335_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_335_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_335_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpts<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_335\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_335_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: left\">\"In <em>Moments in Place<\/em>, Paul Roth, with acute perception, threads the reader right through the eye of his natural surroundings, where he not only allows us to witness nature but become part of it. One can feel the moon on his lap as his hands \u201clet go their grip on its craters and soft textures\u2026.\u201d Or how his blood \u201c\u2026flowed its greenest red through a rhubarb stalk\u2019s arteries.\u201d We join the poet in his contemplative study of understanding and existential awareness \u201c\u2026.as if after billions of years and through the vastness of this nothingness, our temporary lives were contrived.\u201d He considers aging, time, loss of memory and the desire to speak with the dead and realizes \u201c\u2026just to see them\/takes the same\/speed of light\/only our dreams\/can achieve.\u201d\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Patty Dickson Pieczka, author of\u00a0<em>Beyond the Moon\u2019s White Claw<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\"Over the decades Paul Roth has written a major corpus of poetry, finely attuned to the minute details of nature, yet always granting them their universal weight. By effacing himself in rapt observation of the red on a blackbird\u2019s wings, or the sheer veils of snow on grey rock, he has enriched his poetic voice all the more. The Earth speaks through his words, in all its intimate particulars\u2014but also as a blue sphere lost in space, moving through a cosmos beyond our grasp. His extraordinary new book, <em>Moments in Place<\/em>, invests his vision with a further note of clarity: the vantage point of old age, when life 'narrows us down through a thinning passageway to a life expectancy of zero.' Many of the moments here are memories, though he brings them into our present place without nostalgia, much less metaphysical delusions. In his work we are always gratefully aware\u2014to paraphrase Oppen\u2014of the reality that we confront.\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Hoyt Rogers, author of\u00a0<em>Thresholds<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-333 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/paul-b-roth-headshot-draft-2.jpg\" alt=\"Paul B. Roth headshot\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>Paul B. Roth<\/strong>\u00a0has been published widely in the United States and his work has been translated and appeared in journals from Japan, Peru, Israel, France, Bolivia, Italy, Ecuador, India, China, Mexico, Italy, Syria, Romania, Estonia and the UK. In both 2018 and 2020, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the author of seven collections of poetry of which his most current are\u00a0<em>Cadenzas by Needlelight<\/em>\u00a0(Cypress Books, 2009),\u00a0<em>Words the Interrupted Speak<\/em>\u00a0(March Street Press, 2011),\u00a0<em>Long Way Back to the End<\/em>\u00a0(Rain Mountain Press, 2014),\u00a0<em>Owasco: Passage of Lake Poems<\/em>\u00a0(Finishing Line Press, 2018), and\u00a0<em>Weightless Earth<\/em>\u00a0(Bitter Oleander Press, 2022). He lives in Fayetteville, NY where he\u2019s served as editor and publisher of The Bitter Oleander Press since 1974.<strong>\r\n<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_335_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><strong>The Pebble and the Turtle<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nUnderwater lay a smooth pebble never glowed upon at dawn from depths well below this sea\u2019s sand bottom for who knows how long until recently when startled by a tsunami it became lodged, quite by accident, between a Loggerhead turtle\u2019s shell and its hind legs frantically paddling to the surface where, loosened by waves washing over it on shore, and beside its own egg cluster, it\u2019s deposited deep in sand shaded by tall grasses in whose midst leans a crooked no trespassing sign<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Art\/Life<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAfter squeezing this soft clay face hard with fingers clenched as tight as can be into its skull\u2019s empty sockets, I quickly realize it\u2019s not clay, not the soft giving texture my fingers expected, and so relaxing my grip, I watch as this face fills back up with not just the color of its blood but with the exact same expression of fear it\u2019s worn the entire time<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>A Wishful Moment<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhile night turns sideways along this half of the Earth, anticipating moments that come and go without much notice, I reach out to that one particular moment when, instead of stretched out to meet me, it snaps back in my hands as a reminder of the way the sun once shot a single ray of blinding light precisely through my nursery door\u2019s keyhole, spelling my name for the very first time without any well-known letters\u2019 help<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Sequential<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHanded me in another dream, a delicate white cup, spattered with muddy red flecks of color as though lifted off the shell of a cardinal\u2019s egg, and filled with a warm, aromatic, tantalizing liquid, keeps slipping away each time my lips try sipping from it, causing my teeth to bite down hard on its rim, savoring only the porcelain dust this entire dream\u2019s made of<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P style=\"line-height: 2em\"><strong>A Dead Future<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWe won\u2019t know<BR>\r\nthere\u2019ll be nothing<BR>\r\nleft to do<BR>\r\nwhen we\u2019re dead<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWe won\u2019t know<BR>\r\nthe Earth around us<BR>\r\nany better than<BR>\r\nwhen we were alive<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nOnly those who gather<BR>\r\naround us at the end<BR>\r\nholding nothing\u2019s<BR>\r\nweightlessness<BR>\r\nin their empty arms<BR>\r\nas a final offering<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nunderstand<BR>\r\nthis sudden silence<BR>\r\nthat the rumors<BR>\r\nof our deaths<BR>\r\nhave already spoken<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P style=\"line-height: 2em\"><strong>After It\u2019s Done Starting<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhat awaits my absence<BR>\r\nstranded by the life<BR>\r\nthat\u2019s buried me away<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nmay be this empty desk<BR>\r\non which no one else<BR>\r\nwill ever again<BR>\r\nplace paper or pen<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nwill ever again<BR>\r\nwrite in praise of creation<BR>\r\nusing so many rescued<BR>\r\nor discarded words<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nor ever know<BR>\r\nit might have been<BR>\r\nmore than enough<BR>\r\nto have left<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\njust a few remnants<BR>\r\nengraved forever<BR>\r\non such indelible whiteness<\/P>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_335 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_335 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_335\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Paul B. 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