NOTE DE L'ÉDITEUR : Evelyn Ames [the wife of Amyas Ames, president of the New York Philarmonic, to whom the book is dedicated] describes as consistently recurring themes in her poems « the precariousness of existence and the fleeting yet positive affirmation of joy and meaning in life's experiences. »

She finds harmony and balance in nature — and all living creatures — from which modern man has become perilously detached.

EXTRAIT

Encounter We live where the last glacier ended — our beach, from cliff-edge to deep water, studded with boulders : fringed hulks low tides uncover ; giants, inshore, that stay bald — their tonsured heads platforms for gulls ; those far under that must be dived for to be found. [...] The myths we know (and do not know we know) until one day, amazed, we're beached on them ! Where do they hide ? Some of the planet's molten magma composed itself, in time, while we, who seem completed, seethe inside like fluids fire underground. ☐ p. 13

• « On the Vineyard » photos by Peter Simon, with contributions by Evelyn Ames (et al.), Garden City (N.Y.) : Anchor press, 1980