Through the poems in Spans, Elizabeth Seydel Morgan examines life from the perspective of one who appreciates the complexities of the world but finds pleasure in events as predictable as the changing of the seasons or as uncomplicated as a visit to an art museum. Morgan accepts the inevitability of change but mourns the loss of "what we don't know / that we cannot live without."

By couching her wry insights in deceptively simple language, Morgan can commemorate a long-ago game of hide-and-seek in the same darkly humorous tone that she employs to recall tragedies both natural and manmade. With wit and more than a touch of melancholy, she contemplates the disappearance of the world's honeybees, the vagaries of friendships and romances, and the quiet satisfaction of garden plantings. Her poems invite the reader to examine without resentment the multifaceted world we inhabit, with all its frustrations and pleasures.