At ninety-two years of age, James McGrath offers poetry in this book as a response to the 2019, 2020, 2021 coronavirus threats and opportunities to change and celebrate our lives. It is as if the months of the virus uncovered, even provoked, fragility and strength to speak in a variety of voices to echo confusion and bewilderment in the comings-and-goings of everyday life. McGrath's voices in the temporary silence are pumice and basalt, cloud and mirror. This is breathing. James says, "These are not last thoughts. You see, I am not completely alone. You are nearby."

James McGrath is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He completed his doctoral thesis on the work of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and his first book Naming Adult Autism: Culture, Science, Identity was published by Rowman & Littlefield International in 2017. His poems have been published in various literary periodicals.