This is the imaginative debut poetry collection from Jim Schley. Jim Schley's first full-length collection of poetry comprises four sequences that turn upon phases of life - child and youthful traveler; apprentice to a group of uniquely challenging and insightful teachers; husband, homesteader, and new parent; and troubled but still engaged citizen of a village and the world. These are the poems of a man struggling to understand momentous changes in relations among women and men, as well as changes in the subtle, jeopardized relationships of a human being and the surrounding land. John Keats described the earth as a "vale of soul-making," and in Schley's reprise the destination of a soul is home-making.