Second Nature: Poems

In these poems, Eric Paul Shaffer explores second nature, "a practice natural enough to look natural." Practice means acting within every moment and also means refining the most elegant and economical way to act. Practice is both what we do and what we learn to do well. These simultaneous senses reveal our second nature, whether one reads bumper stickers, counts magpies, imagines a brother as a river, grieves a lost mango tree, or squints the eye just enough to see clearly.

Always outside of...