When my book of poetry, Tree and Shadow, was accepted for publication by Wild Leaf Press in 2011, the editor, Shelly Fritsch, wrote: "We like the work, which is effusive and evocative, and seems to ride (as Frost put it) on its own making." I am happy to announce that Wild Leaf Press has given me permission to publish Tree and Shadow here on Amazon KDP. Most of the poems in this collection are about my family, including my dogs and horses; and my love of nature. My niece, McKenzie, asked me this summer which of my books I liked the best, or which book was I most proud of, and I said I didn't know. I have always had trouble choosing between one thing and another. I decided later, as I often think of what I should have said long afterwards, that it is my poetry. Because just as being a mother is when I have felt closest to my truest self, writing poetry is when I have come closest to saying what I really feel. Poetry can bring order to my life. In the writing, I discover how I feel about moving from the city to the country, as I did in "Silver Queen." [She will not like any gift I give her, / I tell him about our daughter./ There are six rows of silver queen/ he tells me back. See?] Something happens, as it did one day when we were visiting a favorite daylily farm on Route 29, and I just have to write about it. In this way, a singular experience is transformed and preserved better than a photograph can do, as it was in "Afternoon Out." [Out here the sky is so big/ a murder of crows rides/ a whirlwind like a flurry/ of broom-swept debris.] In the poem "Erin" I didn't set out to pay tribute to my daughter, but poetry can be like sculpture when memories converge with love. [When the moon nibbles/ at the edge of the delicate sky, / you become the nester. / The one most chosen to be stranded with. / You make the fire, draw the water, / bring the animals in from the storm.] "Dog of the World and Century" is my foxhound. [Lucy was famous around these parts/ we never did get our mail and anyone/ coming up the drive was announced with a/ fanfare befitting an army of intruders.] And then there are the poems about my mother who died when I was sixteen. There are a number of those as I have grappled with my grief and tried to understand how her death shaped my life, as I did in Barren Shed. [My mother sits by the bridge/ waiting for nightfall./Gentle manatees nuzzle/ her feet, /boat bellies, / newborn kittens.] "Runnin' a race with a shootin' star" is the story of my life: [The girl dismounts and crawls into a crate./ You watch from the kitchen window/immobilized by silent thunderheads/ as her horse stands by, reins dangling in the dirt.] And "Snowdrops" is my philosophy of life. [Sing Snowdrops to the tune of Crazy/to keep yourself from going insane./Willie wouldn't mind, he might try it himself.// Buy some bulbs and plant some snowdrops/under your favorite tree./Go out in the February snow/and lie down on your back./Make angels in the snow/while you wait/for them to bloom./Forgive yourself/it can be cathartic.