'Each reading of your palm a different road
verging from soil and forking into possibilities
in a wild and foreign ocean
no vaster than the line it makes with the sky
'In The Many Uses of Mint Ravi Shankar resuscitates old poetic traditions while breathing new forms into life; he translates the ancients and collaborates with living artists and writers; and he peers through spirit at the secrets of the luminous universe. His work, over time, proves that by partaking of formalism, philosophical inquiry, musicality and play, language's wet clay can be shaped into artifacts of exceeding beauty and lasting resonance.' (Publication summary)