If the taste of the eternal and "is increasingly absent in our words, and " then Jeff Hardin's sixth collection, A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being , attempts to behold language anew, to listen in on its and "preview of eternity. and " Aware of ambiguities that plague our lives and given to swerves of logic and dislocations, to echoes and reverberations and "too numerous to see in some totality, and " his poems nonetheless speak openly to existence, to the mind's and "attempts to console itself, and " and to the and "intoxication of incoherence and " existence so often feels like. Here in a postmodern world, is it still possible to step boldly into certainty, into clarity, to find a sacred and shared space where and "all moments blaze up with a speaking voice and "? Hardin listens intently, discovering more and more how and "wanderingly vast and " enchantment still might be. In the presence of so many options for understanding, he chooses to believe and "a new parable unfolding, still instructive, and " pointing him toward a fellowship with others who likewise and "lean toward thinking some healing is already underway. and "