"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery," Annie Dillard has written. Dorothy Walters is a 72-year-old poet who has explored the traces on her inner landscape and found rich treasures there. This former teacher of literature and women's studies knows that poetry is a way of seeing and naming who we are, where we have been, and what has happened to us. The 105 poems in this luminous collection will send sparks flying up and down your spine. They offer good medicine for your soul.

Here you will find visions, insights, and epiphanies engendered from Walters' encounters with Rumi, Mother Goddess, Krishna, Hildegard of Bingen, and hermit monks. The poet listens, learns, and testifies to the language of stones, the Yogi inside, the suffering that sings its own strange songs, and the grace that envelops us just when we need it most.

All of these are evoked beautifully: "Word ribbons flew off my tongue, / streamers of feeling." Again and again Walters transports us into the fire and the light of the mystical path, speaking to the seeker in all of us. "Something inside me / constantly bleeds toward god / that's why I keep writing / slipping messages under the door."

Bob Dylan once wrote that "the highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?" Savor these poems. Let them wash over your senses. No matter what your spiritual persuasion, Marrow of Flame will soften your heart and expand your receptivity to the Beloved.