A remarkable collection exploring ageing mortality and environmental destructionWINNER OF THE DAVID COHEN PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2023By far the best British poet alive SPECTATORA master of language HILARY MANTELIn this powerful moving book John Burnside takes his cue from Schiller who recognised that as one thing fades so another flourishes everywhere and always in matters great and small new life blossoms amongst the ruins.Here in poems that explore ageing mortality environmental destruction and mental illness Burnside not only mourns what is lost in passing but also celebrates the new and sometimes unexpected forms that emerge from such losses. An elegy for a dead lover ends with a quiet recognition of everyday beauty first sun streaming through the trees . a skylark in the near field flush with song as the speaker emerges from lockdown after a long illness.Throughout the poet attends to the quality of grace numinous exquisite fleeting as an angels wing and the broken tryst between humankind and its spiritual and animal elements even with itself the gaunt deer on the roadslike refugees.