Section 1: Introduction, Dedication, pages 1-7 Summary

In the Introduction by Naomi Shihab Nye, San Antonio, Texas, Nye leaves her beloved grey neck pillow on a plane. She has lost many things throughout her lifetime, causing her to be attracted to words like immortal, eternal and forever. "Losing makes us miserable, startles us awake. It's also inevitable" (p. xi). Nye considers whether there is anything good about losing and thinks that perhaps it makes people momentarily take better care of what they still have. Perhaps, these petty losses are so bothersome because they remind people of the larger, inevitable losses that can never be reclaimed, the people and eras of life. Losing is never any easier to comprehend, regardless of how much has already been lost.

"Dedication" by Jim Natal is to poems that get lost in the dark, flutter out of...