Cardinal or Crow by Molly Myriah is a short, intimate collection of prose poems and lyric fragments that circle around grief, faith, motherhood, trauma, and everyday wonder. The book moves through hospital rooms, kitchen floors, beaches, churches, and garden paths, and keeps returning to weather, trees, birds, tides, and small animals as anchors. It tracks a speaker who has lost her mother, survived betrayal and poverty, raised children, wrestled with God, and still finds reasons to laugh, plant flowers, and notice butterflies and hydrangeas. The pieces are brief, often only a page or two, and they gather into a loose story about being broken open and then learning to live with a tender, alert heart.

As a reader, I felt close to the voice on the page right away. The writing is simple on the surface, and that choice works. Short lines, plain words, small scenes. It feels like someone who has lived a lot is just talking to me across a table. I liked the steady mix of sharp one-liners and soft images. A poem will crack a joke about “be cool” and then turn and punch straight into the cost of pretending to be fine. The free verse feels loose, but the book has clear patterns. Nature shows up again and again. Trees that feed the weakest roots, yellow butterflies, hydrangeas that change color, the shore as medicine, the tide that covers and then pulls back. That repetition gives the book a spine. I also enjoyed the small structural tricks. Titles like “Maslow,” “Goliath,” or “Road to Emmaus” drop in big ideas, then the poem itself stays grounded in very human scenes. The tone stays conversational, but the images are often bright and odd in a good way, like a pink canoe across a golden grid or a leaf caught in a window screen.

Emotionally, the ideas in this collection really resonated with me. The book sits with grief without rushing to fix it. Death of a mother, the long ache after a breakup, the strange life of being a single parent, the weight of childhood trauma. All of that shows up, and it feels honest. I appreciated the way the speaker talked about faith, too. God is here, but not as a neat answer. The poems question, argue, and still lean toward hope. There is a lot of talk about free will, courage, and choosing to keep going when the tide of pain pulls you under. The collection also takes care with attention. It keeps saying, in different ways, that small acts matter. Picking up an earthworm, asking how someone really is, planting loud flowers for angels, noticing rain or a dog’s steady presence. I found that idea comforting and also a little challenging, since it asks me to wake up more in my own life. The mix of tenderness and hard truth felt believable. I never felt preached at. I felt invited.

Overall, I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy reflective, accessible poetry and who are open to spiritual language that lives beside real hurt. It will likely speak to people who have lost a parent, left a painful relationship, or carried old family wounds. It will also suit readers who love nature writing and small, daily moments more than big plot twists. If you want clean, spare lines that feel like a friend talking, and you do not mind sitting with heavy feelings along with little flashes of joy, this collection is a good fit.

Pages: 150 | ASIN : B0FJPPHMNN