Basilica

Two noted Maryland authors teamed up to produce Basilica, an intense collection of photography and poetry. George Miller and Donald Shomette view their subjects through a single lens. Theirs is a true collaboration, a process in which images and words intermingle and grow.

Basilica begins with the Baltimore Basilica as a sanctuary from the turbulent events of the 1960s. A desperate mother brings her shell-shocked son to the Sunday service hoping he might find peace after the trauma of Vietnam. "We're here, we're safe, no bombs, no guns, you're home."

Fifty-six poems and stories spread over seven sections lead the reader through decades along Maryland's western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

• SANDHILL CRANES - "The cranes descend, wings feathers brake, feet forward, one with the marsh, they land, dance, forage."
• BALANCE BEAM - "Know it, become it, feel the padded suede beneath your naked feet, the spring within the wood, the space above the beam."
• FLAT BOTTOMS, GOD BLESS'EM - "Master of tides snaking curlicue channels into the marsh, slithering back to the broad water."
• VIETNAM - "The wind blows warm from the delta at dawn, hot from the hill country at noon, sleep, dawn, direction fail me, time is forever noon and hot."
• A PALM BEACH BLESSING - "May the star in the east guide your petroleum engineers to oil deposits under the desert."
• ON READING JUNG'S SEVEN SERMONS TO THE DEAD - "Wings of the white bird hover over my hydrangea, incessant figure eights along serpentine garden paths strobe, stroke, beat."