This collection includes a large number of previously unpublished poems, as well as poems published on my website and my two previous collections, In The Water Was The Fire and Souvenirs of Spirit. It also reprints a number of prayers and blessings related to Mercy, some of which were commissioned by Mercy International Centre, Dublin. These poems and prayers are essentially about encounter: encounter with the Divine, the natural world, the Celtic landscape and spirit, and those whose lives the poet has shared through journeys of birth and death, dementia and abuse.Exploration of the meaning of Mercy is at the heart of many of the works.