The poems collected here, written over a period of more than forty years, are grouped in four sections, each representing conversations of which the greater part must remain invisible yet can be here and there surmised. Almost all were written in response to other persons, not only those most intimate, but also friends and even sometimes strangers of only brief acquaintance. The meaning of persons, I have found, is elusive but precious and compelling; there are some whose presence as gift remains a mystery, not conformable to category. My consciousness of the spectral presence in all such relationships of the one who is Author of all has led me to include halting moments in that ongoing dialogue in which holy Scripture is the prompting voice. For lack of a better term, I describe these utterances as prayers and meditations.