I chose this book mostly at random, because I enjoyed reading Mary Oliver last year, because I was struggling to finish anything and thought poetry might help, and because this one was available as an ebook through my library. I didn't even read the synopsis.

So I was surprised to discover that this is a collection all about two topics that I've thought about and struggled with for the last year or so: grief and faith.

I read a lot about grief. It's a topic I'm comfortable with. Since losing my dad, books on grief find me even when I'm not looking for them, and I find that I trust people who have known grief more than I trust others.

Faith is another matter. I rankle when people bring up God, when they say that they are praying for me, when they suggest that I attend their church. I describe myself as pagan-ish but for the past couple of years have struggled even with that. So when the Lord started showing up in these poems, I was concerned.

To my shock, the poems about faith turned out to be some of my favorites. They made me feel a bit like I do when I attend UU service, which I started doing because I thought it might be good for me to be around hopeful people for an hour each week. Oliver writes about God in a way that's grounded in her observation and love of nature, and that's usually where she finds God: in fields, in birds, in a fox at the end of the path or squirrels sleeping in the eaves. It's a way of approaching faith that I could get along with, even if most days I don't know what my faith centers itself around, anymore.

So, overall, I loved this. There are even some dog poems, because it is Mary Oliver, after all.