These poems are daring, challenging in tone, at moments enigmatic. They move wonderfully in and out of figurative flight and let plain statement take over in unexpected places, often turning up a surprise topic. They don't pretend not to suffer, but they don't brood. Cued by its title, this collection explores everything implied in Stevens's "I wish that I might be a thinking stone." Etched by thinking, here is an aesthetic to offset chagrin and disappointment, aging, and sympathies with other beings that would otherwise be too intense.