Christina Davis's An Ethic begins with the death of a loved one and proceeds to widen the gyre of that loss--as constructs of here and now, near and far, human and animal begin to fall away or be questioned. Compared by Forrest Gander to the works of George Oppen, this minimalist meditation looks back to the 19th century ideals of Muir, Thoreau and Whitman, and forward to a new unity.