Nothing By Name ~ a novel in free verse
by Mary Cuffe Perez
with illustrations by Judy DePew Howell
2011 | 87 pages, soft bound
Abandoned by her mother at age 11, Ruby lived alone in the house where she was born on a remote upstate New York farm. She never knew the benefits of electricity or running water, and supported herself raising sheep and selling blueberries.
To Order: Please send $12.95 per copy to:Shaggy Dog Press | PO Box 318 | Westport, NY 12993
What She Knew
Very little by name.
But what the sky would bring
by the press of air.
Horses coming
long before she heard them.
Trees
by the bee talk of the locusts in spring,
river rush of pines,
oboe through the apple tree.
Birds
by their arrival and departure.
The smell of water
underground.
The hesitation of everything
before a storm.
How wood splits down the seam.
The way into an animal's trust.
Where to part the wool.
The ones to save, the ones you can't.
How to find the way by sun
and stars and to measure the cold
by the stone of your breath.
The way fire makes love to wood
and the time of day
by where the sheep graze
on the hill.
This was what she knew
and why she kept
everything that came to her.