Isolation and transformation are the central themes of The Spine: isolation caused by death,alien landscapes, and lost ideals; and the transformation, for good or ill, ofthose this isolation reaches. The people and creatures in "The Ones Consumed"become absorbed – figuratively or literally – by the world around them. Thoughthe absorption often destroys them, the section opens and closes with poemswhich reveal that there can be compensation and justice in the process."Separate States" deals with the experiences of those who findthemselves cut off from the lives most familiar to them. This separationresults in their gaining knowledge stronger and deeper than the kind offered bythe surfaces of the commonplace. Isolation has more severe physical andemotional consequences for the people of the poems in "Scars of WhatTouches." Even when someone chooses isolation, as in the final poem of thesection, the presence of the outside world forces itself past the barrierserected against its intrusion. The last section, "Shaped by Shells andjourneys," is peopled by those who find reason for hope, even though theinnocence of an earlier age has vanished for them. They accept the limitationthat the only part of their world they can truly change is themselves, and thisreleases them from the isolation which wounds or destroys so many in the earliersections. It is thus that the final poem transforms a scene of unthinkingdevastation into one where the poet alters the way he will live from that timeon.
