Honest poetry coming out of everyday life, joys and struggles, keen observations of nature, family, friends, and faith. A beautifully-presented collection composed at various times throughout the author's life. Many of these poems have been published in national periodicals and are collected here in book form for the first time. Together, they offer a spiritual and emotional memoir of a life of searching faith, faltering bu constantly clinging to hope, while learning to love. Both metered rhyme and free verse are employed. Original color illustrations are interspersed among the 73 poems. From the INTRODUCTION (copyright 2016): Poets compose poems and readers enjoy them because nothing quite distills the feelings of a moment as does a piece of verse with its resonance, sound, and form. A poem comes from someplace in the heart. And when read, it can reveal something about the heart. Like music, it may employ major or minor tones. I hope the poems in this volume, selected expressions from each stage of my life, will touch a chord for you, my reader - perhaps in a major key of delight or consolation; perhaps with minor overtones of grief or longing. May you find something here to illumine your path and lighten your soul at whatever place of life you find yourself.

From my wanderings in and wondering about nature; from opening more and more to the Divine; from faith, family, and friends; out of noisy living and quiet places; out of whelming emotions, questionings and questing ... come poems to help cope, to make sense of it all, to ennoble earthly life. In crisis has come hope; in fear has come faith; in fragility has come strength; in joy has come affirmation; in loss has come bounteous grace. I want to remember it all, but softly. Contents: I.Poems from Adult Years (in reverse chronology) In the Cleft of a Cold White Rock Weights of Glory Earth and Heaven Snow On Good Friday God's Anvil A Choice Glory Gladwin A Man With a Sword Consolation In My Heart an Altar Longing For Home Friends Sitting In the Grass On an Autumn Day Deborah After the Reunion God's Inexplicable Work Living Wounds Autumn Walk Along the Poudre River Rhymes For Grandchildren Waves On the Cladach After Saying Good-bye If I Hadn t Looked On a Walk In Ferndale A Walk At Dusk Affirmation Evening Light Three 'First' Poems God Plus One Is a Winning Majority A River Is Flowing Cleansing, Healing and Deliverance Footprints In the Snow He Calms the Storm Window Washer Antidote God's Husbandman Beauty A Friend Wings of Faith Why Me? Blue Asters Leafy Lament She Prays It's Fall Shadows Release Autumn Renewal Sleep Baby II. Poems from Childhood and Teen-age Years (written under the pen name Katie Estell) Meditation Daydreams A Book My Thoughts Dreams Spring I Have a Friend For Us To Larry He Loves Me Limerick I Like To Eat! Delight Solution For a Soul In Torment Joy It's a Beautiful Day