Introduction

Poetry may well be the preferred literature of the future.  In a world where compactness and miniaturization are increasingly necessary, and short attention span relentlessly conditioned, poetry packs a lot of message in a small package.

 

I have always loved words, especially playing with them.  I delight in the beauty, indeed the courage, of the newly-created phrase, the original metaphor.  It is specially satisfying when I succeed in putting words to the ineffable, and a reader/listener says, “Oh, yes, I know that, too!”

 

In my work as psychotherapist I found metaphor and imagery to be powerful communicators.  I know the power of the right word artfully and timely dispensed, to either hurt or to heal. War and peace begin with spirit, is then carried by word.  Word-wit delights and refreshes.  Word-beauty satisfies, soothes.  What a wondrous invention is the word!

 

I have created word-images and word-music as long as I can remember, if only in my head.  This collection includes pieces from among those I wrote down over the last 35 years.  The four sections reflect arenas that have spawned these words: various kinds of love, commentary on my world and times, love of nature and gardens, and reflections on growing older. Written between my early 40s and late 70s, they necessarily reflect changes in maturity, varieties of vision, experimentation with form, diversity of subject, and, admittedly, range in quality.

 

Nevertheless, I am content to let them go as they are, hoping that each piece, like children we yield to their own lives, will resonate with someone somewhere, knowing no one can like them all.