Pura Vida takes us on a journey from the urban desolation of San Jose, Costa Rica, to the natural divinity of the rain forest where the volcano Arenal towers like a pyramid with its cone shrouded in clouds. Lucid and brief, these poems challenge us to cross over into another world while remaining tragically grounded in reality, as when the tiny blue-jeaned frog, small as a red dot on a leaf, poisonous to the touch, gives pause to this observation:

What poison, I wonder, do we carry—
which might, upon contact, stop the heart
of those who dare touch us?

Or this tribute to Earth and Feminism, flipping the myth of Eden upside down:

And everywhere there are flowers I am not,
for which I remember the genetic fact
that women are not of men, but men
are born of women, as modified women.

These are the poems of Pura Vida—pure life.

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