“There is in this collection a real affection for the world and a wisdom in Absher’s contemplation of the beings who inhabit it. His love is an examined love, and so we have the pleasure of listening to his mind and to his heart. The clarity of the writing and the complexity of Absher’s world-view result in a poetry of intelligence and power. I was moved by the beautiful moral tone of these poems.” —John Skoyles

“The move toward emptiness and simplicity that is the essence of Absher’s poetic discipline is taken up in his verse, a corpus deceptive in its accessibility. Yet his text demands, for its full appreciation, that the reader put all six senses on alert, in order to commune with the spirits his verse has summoned, in order to bear homage, with him, to the fragile treasures of a world otherwise so recklessly misprized.” —Ruth El Saffar

<small>from Alice James</small>