The book contains five sections: "Of the Perfected Angels" with a long poem on Matthias Grunewald; "Dying Trees" concerning the huge die-off of trees in the U.S. West; "War Stills" about the war in Iraq; "North of the Java Sea" on anthropological topics in Southeast Asia and Oceania; and "Sarawak," relating two months' work with a nonprofit in Borneo against deforestation.