Now and for a Time

Throughout his long and prolific career, John Fuller has been admired for the way in which he melds levity with serious reflection. In this beautiful new collection of twenty-one poems he proves himself, once again, a true master of this art.

They take us from birth to death: from a baby''s first delightful babblings, to the dignified, measured words of a man surveying his life and marriage, and looking forward into the unknown. There are moments of great joie de vivre, of pleasure in the earthy things of life; and yet, beyond, there is always a sense of a vaster, more elusive universe.

The snorting of the horses in a field in ''Dreams'', the egret on the rock in ''Sentinel'': these are nature''s mysteries. To make sense of these, we have language and music. Celebratory, playful, reconciled to the questions that will not be answered, these poems exude a miraculous kind of peace and understanding: ''A point of closure that allows the next/Inevitable sentence to begin''.