Each of the poems in this volume seeks to document an encounter, to accept the invitation to show up and faithfully capture the experience of a real moment in space and time. These encounters ripple out-from the home to the neighborhood and the city, then across the land to places far away, then to everything between earth and sky.

Encounters have an open-ended quality to them. We can't be sure what pleasure or pain they might bring or how they will turn out. It is pure pleasure to show up to some moments-and the more present we can be, the more pleasure is waiting to be found in them. The role of a poem in this case is to open the door to that moment, to not let it slip by unnoticed, and to allow the reader to take it in and be nourished by it as well.

At other times the realities we encounter may seem too painful to take in. To invite the reader to show up and not look away, the poet must come with an open heart, bringing all her grief and fear and outrage to the moment, as well as all her hope and vision and confidence in the goodness that is at our core. The facts don't change but, at its best, the poem may make a hard truth more accessible to protected hearts by framing it in one small and faithful encounter.

This volume is full of joy and unexpected delight in close observation of the life around us. It is full of grief at daring to witness that which is not right in this world. It is about finding the heart of the sacred, even in the midst of the profane.