Nathalie Schmid's poems emerge from an intimate contemplation, vital passages revealed in an intense dialogue with the natural landscapes of northeastern Switzerland: the Jura Valley, the banks of the Aare River, whose waters come from the melting of Alpine glaciers, and then its turquoise or silvery-blue lakes; prolific, orderly farms with their deep green meadows; and the wildlife that inhabits them. All these elements, for the traveler arriving from other countries—let's say, from southern Germany—are immediately astonishing, seemingly endowed with both splendor and purity. It's only when one looks closely that one perceives how life pulses and develops profoundly, as the intense cry of the kite warns us from high above. Above the living landscape, these poems unfold a latent territory inhabited by a voice with a delicate tenor, probing through a reflective work on intimacy and affection. A particular plot of time unfolds over these motifs, interwoven with memory, dialogue with other writings and the everyday, childhood and family life, solitude or its absence.