The poems in A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm are an invitation to slow down, to rest deep into quiet and the contemplative. Melanie Green's poetry explores the connection with the numinous-as well as speaking to the difficulty of living with a chronic illness. "Haiku-like in their intensity of language, Zen-like in their meditative quality, these lyrical poems invite us to pause, catch our breaths, and marvel at a poet who invites us to Feel/ the psalm/ of lingering/ calm/ in afternoon's/ echo of light." -Carolyn Martin, author of The Way a Woman Knows and A Penchant for Masquerades "A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm is a wise, generous, expertly crafted volume of poems that reminds us how even in the deep/ arabesque/ of night, in the bearable/ dark, we might yet walk/ out of the house of worry into a place where solitude is cherished and heaven is within." -Tim Applegate, author of Blueprints and At the End of Day