"Make new friends, keep the old, one is silver, the other gold."

A few years ago I disappeared from The Den as I struggled with certain issues in my life. For once poetry wasn't the release it had always been and so, I'm sure due to neglect, my muse decided to make herself scarce. It was a desolate period in more ways than one.

But I did return, eventually, and found my old writing grounds forever changed. Gone were my compadres in crime: Georg, Fee, Mr. Ed, Denise, among others. To make matters worse, those who remained no longer knew me because I'd been gone so long and then I changed my name. It was like returning home expecting the same vibrant community you'd left, only to discover a ghost town in its place.

I've made new friends, of course, but as this Halloween has approached I've remembered with many smiles and hearty laughs a certain year when "Freaky Fee" (Felix Perry) hosted a virtual Halloween party in the making. What fun we had! I've never been much of a party person but I confess this was one "party" I supremely enjoyed.

I miss my friends of yesteryear. They helped to make my early days here on The Den a profound time of personal and creative growth. They were essential to my struggle in finding my personal voice among the many.

Now, years later, I have returned with the hope that I have matured into a writer and poet they would approve of. I can still laugh and flirt and kick up my figurative heels, but I am now more respectful, more serious, about my work. And my new friends? They are already, albeit unknowingly, carrying on where the others left off as they help me hone my talents and skills into ever finer tools of creation. Wherever the future takes me, whatever successes I achieve, all of my friends here on The Den can claim some of the credit for them. I thank all those who can receive my gratitude, and whisper it to the heavens for those who can't.