Partway to Geophany, the latest collection by celebrated poet Brendan Galvin, chronicles the waxing and waning of the year in a small seacoast town on Cape Cod, alongside observations of other beloved places. As a naturalist and environmentalist, Galvin undertakes poems that meditate on wildlife, landscape, and the passage of time. His verse presents powerful and immediate detailings of quotidian experience, with poems about love and loss, local people and customs, foreign and domestic travel, and writing itself. Throughout, Galvin probes the implied question, What is humanity’s place in the natural world? His masterful use of the narrative lyric produces poems of great mystery and intimacy, in tones varying from grave to playful, as he reflects on the cruelties of time and the pleasures of being alive.