The title of Tony Ellis' collection of poems "there is wisdom in walnuts," reflects one of the primary concerns of this collection: the presence and containment of the infinite within its smallest part. Ellis' poems like jewels, spare, serene and pristine in their beauty need no particular setting. They reflect, like clear mirrors unhampered by distortion, the unity and connectedness of all things. Focusing on personal meditative experiences and daily activities, the poems in this collection playfully and longingly touch the edges of eternity. With a minimum of adornment and elaboration, the images presented in these poems move us as through a prism into the center of things. The speaker in these poems seek the oneness and is nourished by his affinity to it.
In a single dewdrop the speaker states:
from a single drop of dew
is the pathway
to a million civilizations
whose voice we never hear
except in the gentle breath of breeze
and the quiet hum
of life infinitely growing
This economy of words, unembroidered, allows for the graceful and effortless slipping of the bonds of the commonplace as we enter timelessness and connect with past and future. The sparkling dewdrop becomes the gateway to connect with the eternal since it carries within itself the essence and the paradigm of all of life and is part of the magnificent and all-encompassing software that is nature.
In the poem sometimes, the speaker explains:
there is nothing so fulfilling
as the white tassle of a carpet
seen through the eyes of everything,
or a simple green pot
sitting clean
on a perfect surface
