On Inscape's Curve

Book excerpt: My poems help me see what is in front of me. They typically find that an image is presented, an image that seems to suggest a line of verse, just one which, when written down, enters into a cadence, a rhythm, a sense of sound and echo that evolves into a sequence of lines that flow. They flow until they stop, that is, and announce to me that the poem is, in facet, done. That is true whether the image is a raindrop or a tree, a flower or a bird, a shadow or the innuendo of faith or country: whatever. This book draws upon poems written some years ago, mostly in the years 2009 and 2015. There are also a few current poems that insist themselves into the collection as they are accumulated in the current year's file. As I revisit poems of years ago, quite often the occasion presents itself to memory - but not always so. Sometimes that occasion is as if unnecessary and, indeed, almost in the way of the poem as it has come to be. Revisiting is always a pleasure; it becomes one of the spurs toward forming the collection itself. Indeed, it s the pleasure and the satisfaction in the book that brings it about. Satisfaction is such a boon to life.