Just Enough to See by Betty Les

“I am a part of all that I have met.” This Tennyson quotation, which most of us read in school, surfaced for me as I sat down to write about Betty Les and her poetry. Her poems so accurately not only record her impressions of the world we all inhabit; they also give us her reflections, which are profound. She does all this using the fewest words possible, allowing the subjects to carry her interactions. And it is these interactions which allow us to see the natural world through her sensitive and trained eyes.

Betty’s subjects are aspects of this world which most of us walk through daily, but do not see as she does. Through her observations and reflections, we open our own sensibilities to the world we  live in, the world as it once was, and even the world that we hope to restore to its once pristine beauty. We can now walk with her on trails, on everyday streets, on moments from her childhood, on dreams and hopes that we have not yet destroyed this world of wonder.

Birds, trees, leaves, rocks—all are precious in her eyes, and she knows them well. Her poems are precious in our eyes as she  has opened them for us. This is a magnificent collection, one to return to over and over as we travel with her through our own memories and experiences with this world that is “part of all we have met.”

–Fran Claggett-Holland, poet, teacher

Just Enough to See is a prescriptive for observing a miraculous natural world.  A universe where everything is sacred. In this beautiful book “everything is seen differently perfectly” and “the beauty we wake up to cannot be explained by usefulness alone.” Betty Les has accomplished so much more than the right words in the right order. The suchness of these poems will touch you profoundly.

–Les Bernstein, Author