This collection of forty-four poems by a Newbery Medal winner is a quiet celebration of domestic life. Willard describes personal events-the birth of her child, an imaginary conversation with her small son, tending her garden-and each poem becomes a story that elevates the commonplace and renders the ordinary special.

Contents:

• Night Light
• Vision and Late Supper
• Angels in Winter
• Questions My Son Asked Me, Answers I Never Gave Him
• Two Roman Goddesses
• For You, Who Didn't Know
• Nicholas, His Poem
• The Child. The Ring. The Road.
• Animals Running on a Windy Crown
• A Humane Society
• Arbor
• No Bees. No Fragrance
• The Sleep of the Painted Ladies
• Lightness Remembered
• The Photographer
• The Photographer and the Moon
• The Five Versions of the Icicle
• How the Hen Sold Her Eggs to the Stingy Priest
• Indian Pipe
• Moss
• Canna Lily
• Fern
• Mushroom
• Tulip
• When There Were Trees
• The Ceremony of the Coconut
• How to Stuff a Pepper
• Original Strawberry
• Saint Pumpkin
• Bones, Scales, etc.
• Wings, Quills, etc.
• The Generous Body
• Left-Handed Poem
• The Healers
• Being Mended
• Out of War
• In Praise of ABC
• Family Picnic with Wine and Water
• Two Allegorical Figures
• Country Scene
• Out of This World I Shall Discover Horses
• No-Kings and the Calling of Spirits
• My Life on the Road with Bread and Water
  • In Which I Meet Bread and Catch Water
  • In Which I Fall in with This Creature Water
  • In Which I Get What I Want and Get Nothing
  • In Which Water Gathers the Full Moon
  • In Which I Ask Water an Occasional Question
  • In Which I Meet Water Face to Face
  • In Which Water Gives His Life for Music
  • In Which Water Gives Me the Book of My Ancestors