The full range of Gunn's poetic powers is manifest in "The Wound," "On the Move," "The Unsettled Motorcyclist's Vision of His Death," and other poems selected by Gunn from all of his full-length books
One by one they appear in the darkness: a few friends, and a few with historical names. How late they start to shine! but before they fade they stand perfectly embodied, all
the past lapping them like a cloak of chaos. They were men who, I thought, lived only to renew the wasteful force they spent with each hot convulsion. They remind me, distant now.
True, they are not at rest yet, but now that they are indeed apart, winnowed from failures, they withdraw to an orbit and turn with disinterested hard energy, like the stars.