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A Bed of Leaves by Jerry Johnson Illustrated by Julie Petercuskie 70 pages 18 poems & 23 illustrations $9 ISBN 0-9759982-0-X 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Order yours today!

Jerry Johnson has always enjoyed out-of-door activities and his poetry draws upon his vivid memories and experiences in the bucolic and serene areas of rural New England. Many of the poems in A Bed of Leaves are inspired by the natural beauty of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, a section of northern Vermont so named for good reason. Highlands and valleys, expansive forests, rolling farmland, wildlife, Morgan horses, pristine rivers and lakes endow this 1,500-square-mile sweep of landscape with a regal beauty all its own.

The author's poetry speaks of days of "unspoken bonds" with his Golden Retriever, fishing for cagey brook trout on "a stream ne'er faltering on its chosen path, chiseled through ages long surpassed," gathering shells and pebbles on Cape Cod beaches, the season of spring when "buds are metamorphosed into leaves like pupae into winged butterflies," his Morgan horse "poised like a regal statue on the crest of a knoll," the "mist in the valley draped like a gossamer gown," an old horse whose "mane of flaxen hair still shines when the early morning sun hits it right," the bird watcher "recording his sightings, each grosbeak and dove," winter snowshoeing "on bear-paw snowshoes, fashioned from curved white ash and laced with rawhide," and a bed of leaves--"each leaf giving up its life, but giving life."

From the author's perspective, A Bed of Leaves is a metaphor for life. The cycle of nature includes the earth's soil rejuvenating itself from the decaying of leaves. This cycle also embraces the human species, reflecting on its past. Just as new life comes from beneath a bed of leaves, humanity can grow when it learns from its past.

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"Jerry Johnson's A Bed of Leaves is full of life and full of love for life. Reading Jerry's work sometimes feels to me like taking a brisk walk on a Vermont autumn day, with its crisp gusts of wind, changes of weather and mood, solemn moments and cheerful moments, tremendous energy, and the pleasure of sudden glimpses of lovely, unexpected light."
     Reeve Lindbergh, author of Under A Wing, No More Words and several children's books

> Read more in What They're Saying

View larger image Illustration by Julie Petercuskie

Outside my window,
crazed with indiscriminate patterns of ice,
     a red squirrel sits on silent haunches
in prayerful fashion -
a cloistered monk sworn to silence.
His ashen tummy is exposed like the white belly
     of snow which surrounds him
     as he contemplates a sunflower seed
          clenched tightly in his hands.

- from Cycles

> More excerpts and illustrations from A Bed of Leaves

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Jerry Johnson - Creek Road Poet
www.vtpoet.com
Copyright © 2004-2005 Jerry Johnson
Illustrations Copyright © 2004 Julie Petercuskie
No illustrations may be used in any form without written permission of Julie Petercuskie.
No images may be used in any form without written permission of Jerry Johnson.
All rights reserved.