The poems of The Crossing join moments of confusion to moments of clarity. From the unravelling of a modern, suburban family to the longing of a dying farm wife, there are bridges built in these pages: between intellect and intuition, tragedy and joy, the transcendent and the human. These poems, like pieces of mosaic, form an image that depicts our complexities and failings with compassion, and return us to the simplicity of experience honestly lived and authentically recorded. Ranek's work is marked by vivid imagery and precise metaphor. Drawing on both traditional and modern forms, eastern and western religious mythologies, and the peaks and valleys of human relationships, he forges a vision of reality that "listen s] through / the smoke of...words for the burning / at the source."