From a fountain where "all the roads in the village unite", concentric circles expand into the distance: the young and old, fields, a river, a mountain – the fountain's stone counterpart, where the roads end, human time superimposed on geological time. Renowned as a lyrical poet of austere intensity, in "A Village Life", the Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Louise Gluck evokes a Mediterranean world with luminous precision. Her focus is on moments of speculation and reflection in a dreamlike present tense.