A new collection by the ninety-three-year-old Nobel laureate continues his exploration of the meditative lyric, in a volume that considers such topics as aging and mortality. By the author of A Treatise on Poetry. Reprint. 15,000 first printing. Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz's most recent collection Second Space marks a new stage in one of the great poetic pilgrimages of our time. Few poets have inhabited the land of old age as long or energetically as Milosz, for whom this territory holds both openings and closings, affirmations as well as losses. "Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, / I felt a door opening in me and I entered / the clarity of early morning," he writes in "Late Ripeness." Elsewhere he laments the loss of his voracious vision -- "My wondrously quick eyes, you saw many things, / Lands and cities, islands and oceans" -- only to discover a new light that defies the limits of physical sight: "Without eyes, my gaze is fixed on one bright point, / That grows large and takes me in." Second Space is typically capacious in the range of voices, forms, and subjects it embraces. It moves seamlessly from dramatic monologues to theological treatises, from philosophy and history to epigrams, elegies, and metaphysical meditations. It is unified by Milosz's ongoing quest to find the bond linking the things of this world with the order of a "second space," shaped not by necessity, but grace. Second Space invites us to accompany a self-proclaimed "apprentice" on this extraordinary quest. In "Treatise on Theology," Milosz calls himself "a one day's master." He is, of course, far more than this. Second Space reveals an artist peerless both in his capacity to confront the world's suffering and in his eagerness to embrace its joys: "Sun. And sky. And in the sky white clouds. / Only now everything cried to him: Eurydice! / How will I live without you, my consoling one! / But there was a fragrant scent of herbs, the low humming of bees, / And he fell asleep with his cheek on the sun-warmed earth." PART I Second Space 3(1) Late Ripeness 4(1) If There Is No God 5(1) In Krakow 6(1) Framing 7(1) Werki 8(1) Advantage 9(1) A Master of My Craft 10(1) A Stay 11(1) On Old Women 12(1) Classmate 13(2) Tenant 15(2) Guardian Angel 17(1) A Beautiful Stranger 18(1) To Spite Nature 19(2) I Should Now 21(1) High Terraces 22(1) Nonadaptation 23(1) Hear Me 24(1) Scientists 25(1) Merchants 26(1) Coffer 27(1) I 28(1) Degradation 29(1) New Age 30(1) Eyes 31(1) Notebook 32(2) Many-Tiered Man 34(3) PART II Father Severinus 37(10) PART III Treatise on Theology 47(20) PART IV Apprentice 67(32) PART V Orpheus and Eurydice 99