Translating directly from Spanish, he paints the mighty tropical storm, El Nino, into a small boy, hudding, "like us,/ gnawing his knees."

Perhaps most engaging are Edmunds' interactions with nature--in the form of personified plants. These pieces are short enough that they can sustain themselves to the end, without the scarlet-hued melodrama of death or memory fading them. They are appropriately infused with sunlight by more lively color images. One of Edmunds' most vital poems, "Willows Coming Into Leaf," has haiku-like impact.

to have seen, to have held you

naked under your dress

in your green silk slippers, Spring!

Edmunds often moves to formal verse in his longer pieces in The High Road to Taos, , resorting to trite rhyme schemes like, "Farewell, my love, goodbye/Red wine, and oyster pie..." The feeling of spontaneity in exploring a single image, taking a break from the main road is lost. While several small moments of impact may be contained within a single poem, they cannot save the whole from fragmentation.

Edmunds plays it too safe, letting his emotions dry as if they were Lascaux's cave paintings, sensitive to light and life. He forgets that his work is contemporary, the worth of its preservation has yet to be proven. Hidden in distant caves it loses, its chance for glory in the sun.

I Have Tried to Find You for for Lavinia Currier

I have tried and I have tried to find you.

I have sent my mind out towards you:

blank walls! bare rooms!

Everything empty and white, except

on a white pine table, in a drinking glass,

the white flame of a candle mantles its wings and burns.

I have sent my spirit out n search of you--