The title of the poetic volume further suggests that Collins views the poet"s work of writing as a solitary endeavor of thinking and engaging with the written word in the privacy of one"s study, perhaps, rather than in larger life. "It is possible," he writes in the poem "Picnic, Lightning": to be struck by "a meteor/ or a single-engine plane/ while reading in a chair at home." (98) The poet need not ride a spaceship to the moon or crash a plane. He can experience such catastrophic or wonderful events in his study, events of similar inner if not outer emotional intensity.

             There is also a suggestion of moment-to-moment 'excitement," in the poetic life for even though the poet is alone, he is still sailing in his imagination. Thus, the mundane work of life, and of the grind of writing, and simply living can be, with proper mindfulness, the stuff of great art. A single room can provide the scope of a great, even epic journey of the spirit. This reference to a kind of Buddhist mindfulness or appreciation of the vitality and poetic intensity that is there in everyday nature, if only we look for it is seen in the poem "Dharma," where Collins marvels at "The way the dog trots out the front door/ every morning/ without a hat or an umbrella/ without any money/ or the keys to her doghouse." (137) .

             How simple, Collins suggests, in "Dharma" the best things of life are, without keys and money-if only we could appreciate life as simply as a dog! But Collins is never pretentious in his invocation of Eastern Religions, as his poem about shoveling snow with Buddha underlines. (103) Enlightenment comes in ordinary life, but not always easily and as joyously as we might hope for. Even sailing is a manual task, and a difficult one, under some circumstances, just like the writing of verse. And though nature can be beautiful, sometimes grappling with it can be dull and unpleasant like shoveling.