"These finely crafted, deeply evocative poems written with a tenderest heart, questioning mind, and an acutely observant eye, invite us to join the speaker on a trek across history, across intimate landscapes of relationships, human and animal courage, love and grief, global brokenness, and unexpected grace." — Doris Ferleger, author of Leavened and As the Moon Has Breath

"Whatever the topic of his luminous poems—family, nature, childhood or fly fishing—to name a few, Grant Clauser knows that are all related. It is this understanding and wonder that undergirds these poems. Whether the characters in this book 'smash atoms/ into each other/ trying to find god' or tie flies because 'water is music/ I want to stand in,' these poems reach for the place where the known world meets the realm we sense but cannot know. Grant Clauser is a poet who knows the importance of vision, both in the sense of observing what is around us and in being attuned to the worlds to come. 'Trust me, this is the world we deserve,' Clauser says. We will be more deserving of this world if we heed these wise and luminous poems." — Al Maginnes, author of The Next Place and Music from Small Towns

Part I

San Francisco Begins Construction of a Suicide Net Under the Golden Gate Bridge
Walt Whitman at the Armory Hospital
Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven
Hummingbird
Elegy for a Turkey Vulture
Onion Snow
J35
Needfire
Letter to an Arsonist Betrayed by His Heart
Men Weeping in Cars
"Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."
Spotted Lanternfly Anti Ode
God Particle
The Problem
2050
"What am I pondering, you ask? So help me God, immortality."
What if We Could
A Map of Valley Forge

Part II

Trouble Light
Blue Willow
Bamboo Fly Rod
Valiant
"Only I have left to say..."
Inheritance
Skeet Shooting at Bear Lake
Gathering Night Crawlers
Rock'em Sock'em Robots
He Knows What Makes Old Men Grumpy
What If We Could
Minsi Lake

Part III

Small Gestures
Promised Land
Gravity
Astronomer
Empathy Creek
Midheaven
"The stars, that nature hung in heaven,"
Swimming the Lake Alone
In Elk Country
Harrison
Any Man on a Bridge

Part IV

Instead
Tying Flies After Midnight
Luciferin
Saudade
Last Cast at Valley Forge
To the Girl Who Called the Satanic Hotline to Ask for a Miscarriage
What If We Could
January
Fishing After Losing a Job
Learning to Play Guitar
Adopting a Manatee
When Our Tattoos were Young
The Tattooist's Lament
Thoroughbred
Ode to the Light at the End of the Tunnel
Some Good News
Bear Cubs in the Swimming Pool