The Lord God Creator has given us five openings to the physical world around us, that sacramental world in which we swim: hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell. The experience of each of these senses is sometimes sharp and clean; poignant, evocative, almost unendurable. In the lines of this collection, penned during sixty years, Michael Novak has sought to snatch from the flames of rushing time a few simple pieces, shards, remainders. “All Nature is a Heraclitean Fire,” a real poet wrote. Novak calls himself an amateur. But one who believes, however, that everybody should write poetry, or reach for it. It is the language of our soul. It is concentrated prose.