Book excerpt: When Arlene Corwin is not thinking about music, yoga, our times and culture, God, love relationships, baths, coffee, time or science, she makes it a practice to write about something in nature - just to keep her poetic mind in trim. It usually begins with a simple observation a siting perhaps. Then, being the person she is, the siting suggests, evokes, implies expands. You could call it a meditation on nature in its many forms nature, including her own. Circling Round Nature has as wide a scope as has nature, the opportunities for observations and reactions diverse, endless. Nature is the flattened frog on the road, the mushroom, the plasticized face, the weather, cycles involved in everything: all the forces controlling the physical world. The result has become a mix of of 269 minutely observed, moving, thought provoking but colloquial and often downright funny poems. Written over a period of some 60 odd years, they continue to be written and collected right up to the minute of publication. After many years of practicing the poet's craft, Arlene Corwin, has honed her skills so that many -- almost any -- observation prompts her to poetry. Her poetry is clear and straightforward. The words on the page are as willowy and lithe as if they, like their author, were an experienced and accomplished yoga practitioner. But, better than that, Arlene is also a lifelong jazz musician and brings to her poetry a sensitivity to sound, line and rhythm and that is always musical. Like any lifelong meditator, she brings as well, insights -- not in a ponderous tone of voice but simply, with keen observation and sensitivity. These are poems to read and reread and savor as you would a recording of a good jazz set. - June Calendar