In these poems, Rick Smith portrays his wrens as a race of feathered beings that inhabit the planet as a sort of global shadow-nation, like stereotypical gypsies with wings. They live on mankind's edges and ruins, making the best of their itinerant poverty. And they live in fear: there's always a crow - - they land like WWII bombers / inside the garden - - a kestrel, a cat, or an owl nearby. In the American Southwest, a wren eludes a spotted owl by hiding in the "sea of thorns" of a cactus, a safety zone where the larger owl cannot follow.

The reader cannot help but like these wrens, as presented by Smith. In an estate near Philadelphia, a pair of them "build their nest / in the back of an upholstered sofa, / coming and going / through a hole torn in the cover." Nature can be an adversary: "The wind is a street gang / on the west end of Dakota. / It blows us so hard, we / cannot recover." And there's music, of sorts: "Two wrens who look / extraordinarily alike / meet in a bell tower / in Puerto Rico. / Those bells haven't rung / for years / but if you think / the place is without music, / you're wrong. / Some old blackbirds / are going blind up there." "The wild Mexican wrens gather / out beyond Temecula and / if there is peach cobbler involved / they break into improvisation / that will turn some heads" "You can transfer to Yankee Stadium right here at / Madison Square. They raise a lot of racket up / there. Today, we belong in the noise." And wrens can have a good time: "Fly over the big river / just for fun. / Take in your reflection."

Wren counsel is harsh and realistic, like the best of human advice: "Know the desert and / know the flight patterns / in that edgy space. / Don't land where / you're not wanted, / don't land where / you are / wanted. / Land near the eggs / near warm feathers / that bind you to later. / And don't land too long. / Most of this landscape / will forget you / in a second."

We see the wrens in little family groups, as ragamuffin wayfarers, as denizens of cracks and hollows all over the world. For the first 50 pages, Smith has set up the reader pretty effectively. On the final page is the killer. It's a scene from the St. Stephen's Day celebration, still held on December 26th in parts of Ireland today, in which "Wren Boys wander through Dublin / chanting and holding a mobile / of dead wrens. // The wren is tiny / like the red still fist / of a sleeping child." This is the story. St. Stephen was the first known Christian martyr. According to ancient legend, he had somehow been betrayed by a wren, leading this small brown bird to be considered an object of treachery and scorn throughout the ages.

I want to resist the urge to make a mere symbol of these poor wrens, but I see no other way to explain the bloody conclusion. They represent peoples all over the planet, hunted and killed for no particular reason, other than that they belong to a certain group. And the hatred is no longer a simple human passion - - it's been institutionalized, sanctioned by authority, passed along as part of a tradition, mindlessly practiced by adherents. Smith wants us to look at the innocent lives demolished by hatred, by showing us these winged pariahs as uncomplicated creatures of nature, leading their vaguely human lives, asking only to be left alone. Only the finest poetry displays the poignant beauty that is found in this book. Smith has captured its essence.