<p>This magnificent volume of poetry-as-witness lifts up and dignifies the life we hold in common, illuminating that which is largely hidden within both the personal impulses and impersonal systems that drive and constrain us.&nbsp;The propulsive, elevating, and varied poems build upon each other toward an epic revelation of how our pride and dependence on technological growth&nbsp;blinds us with its short term gains.&nbsp;The resulting vision is one of dark and churning machinery within which everything is connected, the world becoming a vast fabric woven of passions and failures, of lights and shadows, exploration and exploitation leading to war and pandemic.&nbsp;There is individual freedom and survival to be found, but it is in finding the light within each individual's hard-won experience and compassion and understanding the spheres of which we are a part.&nbsp;</p>