Where have all the years gone? It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in my classroom back at Academy in Erie, Pennsylvania. The year was 1967, and my English teacher had given us an assignment of writing a poem. It was nearing Christmas, and being such a fanatic fan of everything Christmas back then, I chose that as my theme. I still have that hand-written poem. The teacher gave me a good grade, but I look back at it now, and I think of how trite it was (and that is why it is not in this book, I write, giggling as I re-read it). But, it was a start. For me, it sparked something, a love of how words can form chains of interesting sounds, musical sounds. So it was that I would continue to play with those musical sounds for many years to come. Writing poetry is complex, a wrestling match with forces in the ether to describe things in the ether, and it still has to make music when all is penned to parchment. More than half a century has passed since I sat in that class, and I decided to cull through some of those "wrestling matches" and share with my readers what won.