"Marrying the ancient with the contemporary, these poems blaze with power, profundity and palpable passion. The sounds and flavors, the journeys and stories are not simple, or easily accessible, but even richer after a second reading." John L. Stanizzi, author of After the Bell and three other collections (on Amazon) and twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. "Mardinly's poetry is fresh, combining thoughts and phrases and words in new and unpredictable ways. You are sure to find poems you will want to revisit and read aloud simply for the pleasure of the sound, and other poems you will return to because you know there is a deeper meaning waiting to be explored." Donna Marie Merritt, author of four poetry books, including Her House and Other Poems ((c) 2013, Stairwell Books, http: //usshop.stairwellbooks.co.uk) Through the millennia, some things are constant: love, joy of bearing children, the sweetness of nature; the despair of hunger, betrayal, hypocrisy, war. Ancestral voices from the deepest part of my being tell stories so like my own, and I see a cyclic pattern of creation and destruction in all the ages of history. I traveled to see the Neanderthal man and the place of the Delphic oracle. I traveled to research previously unknown family lines: Jews in Amsterdam, Assyrians descended from King Assurbanipal, Armenians from Diyarbakir, British living in pretty towns in England and Scots in Glasgow. I traveled to the caves of Lascaux, France and wondered how ice age humans lived and how they made such stunning cave art. I ask why does generation after generation allow some to rule while others starve? There is such beauty everywhere and the potential to create a better world through the act of love. Perhaps we can stop our self-destruction and that of this wonderful earth.