This collection by the distinguished poet initially presents a challenge. The opening essay is a memoir of George Kirstein, longtime publisher of the Nation
and for even longer a friend of Merwin's. But Kirstein does not come sharply into focus until Merwin shifts from an almost journalistic account of Kirstein's personal history to recounting his firsthand experiences and observations of his friend. The rest of the collection has a very different tone and emphasis. The essay "Reflections of a Mountain" takes the reader on a journey that begins in Venice with "the feeling of stepping-stones sinking under the feet they help to cross" and then moves to the Holy Mountain, with its monasteries and churches, of Athos, which (depending on whom you ask) may or may not be part of Greece. Merwin brings a graceful, unhurried style to his travels through Athos and evokes a landscape imbued with history, meaning, and natural and manmade beauty. This piece is complemented by later essays on the lives and explorations of Sydney Parkinson, the naturalist and artist who sailed with Capt. James Cook, and the travels and travails of the 18th-century French naval officer and explorer François Galaup de La Perouse. The Parkinson essay, like two shorter pieces about the plight of the monarch butterfly, occasionally suffers from an academic tone, and the La Perouse piece goes on a little longer than it needs to, but for the most part, these travelers and the natural world that enthralled them make fascinating subjects in Merwin's skillful hands. (May 1)
