W.S. Merwyn's nouveau oeuvre d'arte, explores his favorite subject matter, ie, the beauty that is woman. He wrote many of the poems in this suite while hiking in the French Pyrenees, beating off savage gray wolves during the daytime and bundling up warm against the frigid cold at night. Fingers frozen stiff, burning up all his matches at night to warm and thaw them, provided the inspiration for the title poem.