Sam’s Book

When Sam Ray was killed at nineteen in an accident, his father began writing poetry dedicated to his memory. Sam's Book is a collection of these elegies and other poems written during Sam's lifetime. "How should I mourn?" David Ray asks. By recalling poignant events from the past he transcends his grief. He remembers Sam's first bath, a "holy/Rite"; tying the shoelaces of the "little man"; traveling to Greece, where Sam is "the first…/to see the holy moon." With painful wit and regret he summons