Aroused from stillness, a voice bestows a story, incarnates a life. Dead sister, ex-lover, mystic, dog peddler, potentate - from century to century - smitten, surviving, illuminated, united. With compassion, and with hope, these poems embrace both the brutality of the human condition and the ecstasy toward which the spirit reaches. Putting her readers ever more deeply under her spell, Van Winckel reveres and celebrates "every good thing."