Some of these poems appeared in American Poetry Review, Colorado Quarterly, Environmental Action Committee of West Marin Newsletter, Los Angeles Times Book Review, New American Writing, Pequod, Two Lines, and Volt. Thanks to the editors. “State of the Planet” was commissioned by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and first appeared, in somewhat different form, in “Science,” a section of the New York Times. “A Swarm of Dawns, A Flock of Restless Noons,” “Futures in Lilacs,” “Etymology,” “The World as Will and Representation,” “Breach and Orison,” and “Art and Life” first appeared in Photographers, Writers, and the American Scene: Visions of Passage, ed. James L. Enyeart, Areana Editions, 2002. “Time and Materials” first appeared in Richter 868: Eight Abstract Pictures, ed. David Breskin, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2002. “Horace: Three Imitations” began as translations for The Odes of Horace, ed. J. D. McClatchy, Farrar Straus, 2001. “Then Time,” “The Problem of Describing Color,” and “The Problem of Describing Trees” first appeared in the The New Yorker. I need to thank the Lannan Foundation and the Whiting Foundation for the gift of time in which some of this work was done.