This collection by John W. Schouten is an unforgettable journey through life, love, and loss driven by crystalline imagery that lingers in the soul long after the last poem is read. Each poem draws us into the poet’s world and transforms us so we can’t help understanding our own worlds with fresh appreciation. The powerful blend of lyrical beauty, heartbreaking realism, and unexpected humor repeatedly surprises, delights, wounds, and heals in turn. Through the streets of Calcutta, villages in Mexico, temples in Korea, and riverbanks, marshes, and suburban scenes of North America, we are challenged to experience our own naked humanity. Throughout the book, we are seduced, haunted, occasionally revolted, and ultimately uplifted to a place of heightened awareness of self and place in the universe.