The 56 poems in the collection are grouped under five headings: People, Creatures, Living and Partly Living, Places and Stories.

The "People" include a bookworm who dumps his books and opts for a blonde in his old age; a suicide (why?); a dying man who puts the chance of singing above the chance of survival; a man whose self-imposed function in life is to lead out on foot every funeral cortege through his town; an old woman who plays her squeeze box at a wedding reception, unheard and unheeded; a cyclist, a beachcomber and a boy dead at eleven.

The "Creatures" include a caterpillar, a kingfisher like a piece of glass from Chartres, a cormorant who in the timeless minds of schoolboys sets world records, a stray cat and a ladybird who reminds the poet of a dancer in armour in a Greek theatre.

The "Living and Partly Living" section is about the ups and downs of life: everything from whiskey punch and sunbathing and sailing in a tall ship to loneliness and the pain of loss and a prison moon and a leper Mass.

The "Places", all in Ireland, include a horsefair at Ballabuidhe, a Station Mass in Heir Island, Kinsale before the tourists besieged it, Mayo on Garland Sunday and a country road where the black-and-white cottages play dominoes.

And the "Stories" range from a well in Peru and a silenced priest to Cuthbert the monk who vigilled with otters and the homage expected form Irish tenants by Lord Ventry for his horses.

Every human emotion is articulated: anger, despair, sadness, mirth, love, empathy, amazement, disgust, veneration, gratitude and an unbounded delight in God's creation.

If, as 'tis said, imagery is the lifeblood of poetry, these poems pulse with it.