Adam Stern is a sixty-four-year-old husband, father, and architect whose dad passes away and leaves Adam nothing but a shoe box containing four strange and seemingly worthless items. There is a brass button, a pocketknife, and a bird's feather. There is also a single page torn from a poetry book, and Adam reads the poem over and over. It gradually comes to life, and it shines a healing light of the absurd on Adam's world, transforming his entire outlook on life.