"In this collection of lyric poems, Gerard Martin calls us to confront the most pressing of all human challenges: the desperate need to find anew this world of ours. Merciless warfare, runaway technological innovation, cut-throat commercial rapacity, and the degradation of our environment have made us inattentive to the sacredness of the world we inhabit. Through this account of one man's journey in search of the essential sense of things, Martin comes to realize the smallest elements in the landscapes (bird, flower, a girl's eyes, a stone by the roadside) are secret mirrors of the greatest. Our world is a text we must patiently read and write - and in which we are also written! Martin understands that we and our world are ciphers in a divine cryptography whose deepest meaning we cannot hope to know until we have learned to pay closer attention. Though Martin's poems have been translated into Russian, no single volume of his poetry exists in English - until now."--Jacket.