From 2015 through 2022, I composed my poetry. I was fulfilled to regularly add a poem of mine to this site. Then, in September 2022, my wife of 31 years passed away after a long dance with cancer. Among so many other things, while I wrote a few things after that, I felt like the wind had left my sails and I’ve not been able to get back into the practice.

Most of my adult life I’ve known that writing is a gift I have and one that I’ve rarely been able to sustain for long. It is the creative part of me has too long languished. I believe that to not participate in the creative life is something one does at one’s peril! I don’t know why this is true, but I am sure that it is true.

I’ve tried putting together other kinds of writing sites, but I cannot seem to stick with any of them. I should listen to this. I do not need to figure out why it is, just that it is. It is as if I’m trying to force something into words that just isn’t true for me. Writing other than poetry doesn’t engage or energize me for long.

Poetry is the one thing that I’ve long felt to be my home for writing. Ever since my high school senior English class (Mrs. Evans) I knew this. She made us read poetry and even to write some. I found that poetry was something I enjoyed. That was over fifty years ago. The feeling has not left me.

I wish to begin again. I expect that my poetry will be somewhat different from the things I’ve written before because many things have changed for me. However, this too is part of the creative process, to change when life changes, to grow when, to not do so, means a slow death.