Remembering Softly

<p><strong>Honest poetry coming out of everyday life joys and struggles keen observations of nature family friends and faith.</strong></p><p>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.</p><p><strong>From the INTRODUCTION</strong> (copyright 2016):</p><p><em>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. <P>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.</em></p><p><strong>Contents</strong>:</p><p>I.Poems from Adult Years (in reverse chronology)</p><p>In the Cleft of a Cold White Rock</p><p>Weights of Glory</p><p>Earth and Heaven</p><p>Snow On Good Friday</p><p>God's Anvil</p><p>A Choice</p><p>Glory</p><p>Gladwin</p><p>A Man With a Sword</p><p>Consolation</p><p>In My Heart an Altar</p><p>Longing For Home</p><p>Friends</p><p>Sitting In the Grass On an Autumn Day</p><p>Deborah</p><p>After the Reunion</p><p>God's Inexplicable Work</p><p>Living Wounds</p><p>Autumn Walk Along the Poudre River</p><p>Rhymes For Grandchildren</p><p>Waves On the Cladach</p><p>After Saying Good-bye</p><p>If I Hadn t Looked</p><p>On a Walk In Ferndale</p><p>A Walk At Dusk</p><p>Affirmation</p><p>Evening Light</p><p>Three 'First' Poems</p><p>God Plus One Is a Winning Majority</p><p>A River Is Flowing</p><p>Cleansing Healing and Deliverance</p><p>Footprints In the Snow</p><p>He Calms the Storm</p><p>Window Washer</p><p>Antidote</p><p>God's Husbandman</p><p>Beauty</p><p>A Friend</p><p>Wings of Faith</p><p>Why Me?</p><p>Blue Asters</p><p>Leafy Lament</p><p>She Prays</p><p>It's Fall</p><p>Shadows</p><p>Release</p><p>Autumn</p><p>Renewal</p><p>Sleep Baby</p><p><strong>II. Poems from Childhood and Teen-age Years</strong> (written under the pen name Katie Estell)</p><p>Meditation</p><p>Daydreams</p><p>A Book</p><p>My Thoughts</p><p>Dreams</p><p>Spring</p><p>I Have a Friend</p><p>For Us</p><p>To Larry</p><p>He Loves Me</p><p>Limerick</p><p>I Like To Eat!</p><p>Delight</p><p>Solution For a Soul In Torment</p><p>Joy</p><p>It's a Beautiful Day</p>