Poetry. Women's Studies. In this book, as in the seasons of a woman's life, the quotidian world and the world of mystery change places, pause for us to marvel, then change back again. Hari Bhajan Khalsa shows us the way ordinary tasks, delights, and sorrows can keep us anchored in the world or detach us from it, drawing our attention to the way a raspberry yields its flavor in the mouth, or how changing sheets on Sundays is 'a way to keep//the days turning/in the right direction.' The language of SHE SPEAKS TO THE BIRDS AT NIGHT WHILE THEY SLEEP is economical, yet richly sensory; it is both rooted in the real and full of visionary surprise.--Nan Cohen