In his poem, "Settings," Seamus Heaney, asks, "Where does the spirit live? Inside or outside/ Things remembered, made things, things unmade?" In the Western tradition of lyric poetry, Philip Heldrich's "Good Friday" examines the essence of self forged in the spirit of place. His poems, like those of William Stafford, James Wright, and Robert Bly, ask difficult questions about the nature of our souls, about our wavering faiths, and our desire for deeper revelations. Rooted in the landscape of the Great Plains, these are poems of searching. Filled with tenderness and compassion, humor and irony, "Good Friday" takes its readers on much more than a journey of words into a world of prairie fire, barbed wire, migrating birds, tall grass, and wind.