I tell the stories
that I knew through her
but I cannot say her.

This piece offers beautifully weaved insights into the profound meanings of life, passing, and mystery. It makes us ponder about what the people we've met truly mean. In all their comings and goings, in their being gone and left in the frozen fragments of the past, they become enmeshed in the bits of remembrance that drowse in our subconscious. It is filled with reverie, raising questions about darkness and light, the world, and time. What is the purpose of it all? What is the rhyme in the imagery of our days? These thoughts linger, inviting us to explore the deeper recesses of our minds and hearts, to try and make sense of the complex tapestry of our lives and the people who have crossed our paths.

The more I delved into this book, the greater my enjoyment grew. It leans more towards being a collection of meditations and reflections rather than traditional poetry. While a significant portion of it holds interest, very little of it is 'word-for-word memorable' according to my preferred definition of poetry.

I found the initial half of the book rather lackluster in both its subject matter and expression. However, it does have some remarkable simple verses tucked away within. For instance, in "In Berkeley": "This is the city of my birth. This is my own uneasy earth. Following Time's devious laws, I pass the stranger that I was. In the sea-reflected light that makes the shadows of things bright, I walk a half-remembered street and am the stranger that I meet."

A sonnet concludes with "The sun turns south; the wind is cold. // North and silence eat the old." I sense that she is evoking the spirit of her Earthsea novels, which are archetypal, mythic, medieval, and magical.

The latter half of the book serves as a condensed biography, presented in reflective one- and two-page segments about a series of relatives and friends, spanning from grandparents to childhood and into adulthood. These pieces are charming and captivating on their own, painting a detailed portrait of the author through her relationships and observations. Although everything is exquisitely written - insightful, incisive, musing, and amusing - there is nothing that I would categorize as poetry, regardless of its presentation on the page. It reads more like very elegant prose.