Nelson, E: Terrestrials

The recurring images of rising and falling, escape and recovery, spiritual aspiration, and physical decline provide the unifying metaphors of this collection. These poems celebrate the endurance and mourn the fragility of "the truths of this world," especially regarding the family, the body, and the realities of nature. At the same time, they express the yearning for, and the elusiveness of, the life of the spirit--"gorgeous beyond sexuality."