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This book reads like the no-holds-barred embrace from an old friend, not seen for many years. What stories she has to tell! What adventures she has been on! “My constant desire for closeness,” Manfred writes at one point: whether this is a closeness to family or friends, to nature, to poetry, or to life itself and even to death, it is this intimacy that binds the book together into a whole. Grief and joy, humor and mystery; all belong together in this full embrace of a book.

— Jim Moore, author of Prognosis

In this mesmerizing collection of poetry and prose, Freya Manfred shares with us her most intimate thoughts and feelings regarding relationships as well as the long, winding, and mysterious journey between birth and death. Like the swimmer/poet she is, Freya immerses herself in the imagery of the natural world while delving deep into the liquid recesses of memory. There she finds, through both dreams and intense wakefulness, the joys, sorrows, gains and losses that defy description. Yet remarkably she finds the words.

— Walt McLaughlin, author of Cultivating the Wilderness Within

Freya Manfred writes daringly direct, open-hearted poems that shimmer with fresh phrasing and linguistic music. She clearly recalls the lilac house of childhood, from what she told her dog to how she played with a neighbor kid so twisted by polio he had to crawl. She laments the diminishment of strength and passion in old age but celebrates her seasoning and reasons to rejoice. An earthy mysticism keeps breaking through in poem after poem. And, by the way, the book includes the most beautiful poems about swimming I’ve ever read. Don’t dither, gentle reader. Plunge right in.

— Bart Sutter, author of So Surprised to Find You Here

Like Mary Oliver or Henry David Thoreau or Tom Hennen, Freya Manfred is a poet of wandering and wondering. In her new collection the fear and acceptance of both love and death play significant roles and are sometimes poignantly combined. This volume also includes prose remembrances that turn day-to-day events into mystical stories. Manfred’s work reminds us we all share a special connection to earth and life: “Sometimes (blue herons) fly so close to shore I can feel/ their time-weathered profiles in my ancient bones.”

— Sharon Chmielarz, author of Little Eternities and Duet in the Little Blue Church

I’ve always loved and admired Freya Manfred’s directness, her honesty, and her great precision and care for the language. Reading her new collection is like going with her to the lakeshore for a morning swim in icy waters that are as still, and as deep, and as beautiful as they can be. Her poems plumb the natural world, dreams, beloved friends and family relatives, children, and a life-long partner, readily diving beneath the surface of things to touch the inner core of this common journey we call life.

— Philip S. Bryant, author of "The Promised Land," "Stompin' at the Grand Terrace," and "Sermon on a Perfect Spring Day."

Nodin Press, www.nodinpress.com. 2023. 100 pgs. (With cover by Freya Manfred).