Ash & Embers embodies the inherent messiness of lifeâs journey, sorting detritus from treasures, identifying and naming memory, finding categories that reflect lifeâs winding pathways and its treacherous footing. Taking his various rolesâson, brother, husband, father, grandfather, neighbor, teacher, citizen, believer, writer, and readerâas narrative stances, Zoller considers the details of life and its larger forces. Thematically complex, Ash & Embers accepts that the journey is translated through the often difficult tool of language; thus, it embraces the tension that language is inadequate, alien, and, paradoxically, a tool for recognition and understanding. In Zollerâs poems how we speak about lifeâas physical passage, as spiritual pilgrimage, as imagined patterns, as emotional canvas, as interwoven narrative strands, and as social constructâall these voices meet in one conversation. Between âPhotographsâ that begins the book and âHard Copyâ that brings it to a close we find everything from first impressions to âSecond Knowings,â from notes on the poems of Mao and Seamus Heaney to prayers to the God of time, eternity, and love.