THROUGH LOVE'S EYES

A collection offers photographs and devotional verse.

The images are the real stars of this elegant volume. Moseley’s photos of North Idaho will make readers who have never been to the region feel like they have been missing out. On one level, her book is a visual love letter to her home state. In it are dozens of pictures of the Western landscape rendered in gorgeous detail. If these images are any indication, Idaho’s natural beauties are just stunning. The state’s skies are breathtaking, its waterways lucent, its foliage lush, and its snowscapes pristine. Those who have tried their hands at nature photography know it’s not for amateurs, and Moseley is a real pro. Her photos are crisp, colorful, and expertly framed. But the pictures are not the only gift she has for her readers. Mixed among them are swatches of lucid, moving poetry. Sometimes these poems are barely a few lines. A jaw-dropping shot of a double rainbow is accompanied by a humble quatrain: “Late afternoon Spring storms / adorn radiant skies with / wreaths of glistening rainbows / shimmering in the distant horizon.” Other poems, like “The Road Beyond,” stretch on to multiple pages. That piece ends: “Not once has He left me to travel alone / Through the bends, shadows, or strife / I wait for His hand to show me the way / No never alone on this road, my life.” The “He” here is God, and the natural world is enduring proof of the Lord’s benevolence and love. In this, the poet follows the great Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.” For Moseley, as for Hopkins, people can look to nature for evidence of God’s enduring presence, and her book is a touching testament to that belief.

A poet/photographer deftly makes Idaho look—and sound—like heaven.