A victim of depression during the composition of these verses, I noticed an inability or unwillingness to assign purpose within myself-I was lax and ready to suffer unmitigated disasters with little more than a shrug and a tear. This is really a rather hopeless state of affairs-as a number of the poems outline. I remained staunchly impressed, however, with Dame Nature's capacity to excite the recognition of meaning within myself. As meaningless and adrift as I may have been, I could not help but notice that Nature still evoked in me the wry acknowledgement of a more masterful hand in the pictures I kept seeing-both before me and within me. "No Wood to Sing Through" shows the adaptability of natural instincts and impulses. It was inspired by my observation of a catbird still thriving without its native habitat, and by my own reflection that I was seeing something meaningful-even when my depression had revoked my self as any inherent source of meaning. Something was helping meaning to survive even in the brain of someone who refused to acknowledge any meaning. Something in me wanted, at least, for meaning to survive-or, more exactly, for the expression and acknowledgement of meaning to continue happening, despite my conscious wishes. This is a form of nature's nurturing weather-it is harsh and humbling. Can't I be meaningless if I want to? Don't take that shred of self- definition away from me But, opposite of Sartre perhaps, it seems that meaning remains contiguous with essence, even when that essence wishes to exile meaning. It is this co-created weather of inner and outer that is charted in this volume of verses.