In this debut poetry collection by an award-winning fiction writer, the longing for God and the poignancy of family life echo each other's music. The traditional forms of sonnet, sestina, and villanelle punctuate more modern verse forms, this combination being only one of the strands binding past and present. This volume comprises spiritual writing that remains firmly of this world, reaching out for meaning from both the shifting landscape of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay and the interior places of the heart.