Familiar Smiles and Aging Faces

Writing poetry has proven to be a great aid in seeing what I see, hearing what I hear.  From my perspective, something happens, something gets noticed.  The image, the happening strikes my mind, entices some response in words.  An image or sequence of images appear and enter into a line.  The line bears for me a cadence and a sound.  Vowels tend to be important to me and help to elicit a sequence of lines that add onto one another until they reach the point where they stop and the poem ends.  These poems, collected here from what has come my way over the years, represent what has come in a pair of sweeps over a bit of history plus a sampling of more recent poems that I decided to include in this collection.  Often, the poems from the past recall the happening to mind; others leave the occasion obscured and leave the poem to do its work, creating an image and a flow in my own mind.  The poems, once generated in my mind, now write their meaning on my mind afresh.  And, I hope, on yours as well.  For then the poems will have done their work.