Midlife's beginning and end are marked not so much by specific ages as by the subjective experience of youth having passed but age not yet having arrived. The poems in this collection were written either within a decade of the author entering midlife or in the last few years before he left that time of life. Many poems have themes especially characteristic of midlife—recognition of limits, self-examination, new perspectives, and a sense of mortality. Other prominent themes are nature, God, and spiritual formation; poems about these, too, show signs of accumulated years. The guiding metaphor of the titular poem is of walking in an aging forest where many trees have fallen, prompting the realization that, eventually, even the trees that still stand tall will one day fall. As described in the first stanza:
I walk among the fallen trees
recumbent on a mat of leaves;
no matter that they once reached high,
they've yielded life, surrendered pride.
Join the author in walking among what still stands and what has fallen, reflecting on the lessons taught by each.
