Hovering as we are, this is a spectacularly strange time to be alive. Our world is changing quickly in many ways and one where the seductions of modern comfort, plus the illusion of being super-connected are not always the best medicine for our souls. In spite of this the poet’s task is to bring his exceptional powers of observation and meld it into our narration. Russell Buker always dissolves his readers into vivid landscapes, close to his present home, enriching the experience with cogent references to history, geography, and philosophy where our vanishing points fade in or out, a blurring of wet rose petals on a stone walk is clarified by his mother asking him who he is, thereby offering a wide-eyed view that mixes dream or vision with the tantamount of the personal lyric in all of us.