From Whence

The threshold--the moment when a situation or a person is transformed into something new, for either good or ill--is the central image of From Whence. In many of these lyric poems, the moment of change either is in sharp focus or is exerting its gravitational pull on the poem. It could be the instant when a rock being held up on a frozen pond melts through and makes its plunge, or that dizzying moment when a child realizes that his childhood is over forever. It is leaving a church revival, finding snow outside, and seeing that "Each flake, each one individual we knew, / disappeared into all the others / and made a place for the moonlight to rest." In these moments are loss and newfound joy.