Love is ephemer­al. To stop and appre­ci­ate each moment of our mem­o­ries — the ​“now” moment — and the future of love in all its myr­i­ad forms describes Sarah Stern’s poet­ry. In ​“A Spring for Ein­stein,” for exam­ple, we read the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of love, ​“All mat­ter returns to energy/​Faint light trolling through the universe/​Open the win­dow by your bed/​Watch the cur­tains lift/​That breeze was once you.” Yet amidst this beau­ty lies the jux­ta­pos­ing, ever-loom­ing pres­ence of suf­fer­ing and death that must be accept­ed as part of lov­ing. In ​“From the Jour­nal Entries of Sergeant Antho­ny Jones, Age 25,” Jones writes that he knows he will be killed due to inad­e­quate equip­ment and no parts to fix the trucks while his grand­moth­er stares at his pic­ture with anger, think­ing the right order is that she should have gone first, an age-old feel­ing that is no less potent with love no mat­ter how often heard. A child’s ques­tions in anoth­er poem focus on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an after­life, quick­ly fol­lowed by the child’s total engage­ment in the wind and speed of a bike ride, a lov­ing, thrilling expe­ri­ence in itself. Sarah Stern is a poet to watch and relish.