Filled with awe at the improbable, incomprehensible trajectory of human experience, Renate Wood ponders history, memory, and family. Beginning with the sequence titled "German Chronicle," Wood evokes her childhood in Germany during the WWII, recording the war's impact on the world in general and on her family in particular. Her poems move between the past and the present, from family life to mythology, and are distinguished by intellectual and emotional courage, metaphoric surprise, and linguistic clarity.