As the title of this collection so evocatively states, the poems carefully nested in the pages of The Skin of Light sing to the matter embedded in spirit and the spirit wedded to matter, a fundamental twining that all gifted poets experience instinctively in their bones and in their blood. Though this Poet Laureate's subjects range from classic paintings to music, to marriage, to children at play on a beach and an old woman fiercely ready to take on death, the essential quality of each poem recognizes the depth and danger, the poignancy, pleasure, and pain inherent in every moment we share in this lifetime.