Amphibian Dreams, by A.M. Caratheodory (52 pages, $3.95)

Amphibian Dreams begins with an invocation to Lilith, the "consciousness of night," and ends with a dream of the cave paintings of Lascaux. In between, Caratheodory explores the amphibian world of human consciousness, waking and dreaming, capable of animating a private or social being, capable of playing itself or ultrahuman others.

Other mythological themes address the human dilemma, little changed over three thousand years. In "Tantalus," "Reality is always rising or sinking/Out of touch." Human truth and pride is treated with understanding and irony, as in "Anteus and Herakles" (Anteus was a son of the Earth, Gaia), "Children of Ankaa" (Ankaa is the alpha star in the constellation of the Phoenix), and "The Stone" (the philosopher's stone that could change lead into gold). Some poems are unabashedly lyrical, showing a debt to the classical Greek and Roman poets like Horace ("white-limbed body"), Virgil ("Odysseus"), and Homer ("Iris"). "Amaryllis" is a startling vision that could have come from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Beyond the careful observation and considered presentation emerges a deep respect for nature and life. In "Convolutions," "the role of reason to mold the universe and increase it" is expressed. Where Rilke's poetry moves towards the stars, Caratheodory's moves deeper into the earth. Poetry is treated as an instrument of learning and research. These poems are like fingers probing the interconnectedness of beings in a panecology of the earth--poetry as a discipline of ecology. The poet grants existence and consciousness to all beings and expands his own accordingly. Reason and feeling, left-brain and right, unfold as the poet reports other experiences and perspectives. Coleridge, Shelley, Novalis, and Wordsworth urged the need to keep science and poetry together. Later, Auden argued that knowledge of meteorology, botany, geology, and astronomy was necessary before a poet could begin to speak poetically. Caratheodory falls into the tradition of modern scientists, like Eisely and Huxley, who sometimes wrote in poetic form. Grandson of the French thermodynamicist and an astrophysicist for over twenty years, most recently for the University of Arizona, he has been writing since 1963. Virtually all of the poems included have been published individually in journals between 1965 to 1983. Amphibian Dreams is a surprising book by a scientist who has a feeling for the otherness of nature.

Asia Deer

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Bear masks, elk masks traced

On the wall of the cave.

We put on their skins and faces

To learn how they behaved. From Masks