These pages are a river br down which a young girl watches br her lover disappear, br br and someone meditates upon br crude rhythms of a city street br and finds a suffering God. br br The seasons change br and change again, br a pear tree reaches high, br a cock crows, and the chickens sit br beside a red wheelbarrow. br br All the seasons of the soul br are ripened and transmuted here, br and I, the reader, disappear, br as well, into the flow. br br *UNDERSTANDING POETRY, by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, has been a premier poetry textbook in high schools and colleges, in revised editions, for 6 decades. The book is basically a luxuriously rich anthology, with commentary on poems organized into chapters to illustrate the various facets of poetics.