The picture on the front cover is dawn over the reservoir at the Little River State Park in Waterbury Vermont. My campsite offered its own path to the water, and its own small beach. This picture is taken from the main camper’s beach. Not one person in the campground joined me for this dawn, not one canoe, not one swimmer. There are moments of peace even within a crowded summer campground.

In the dark of midnight I swam beneath the stars with my camp mate. Near the middle of the lake, stars swam above, campfires failed in embers, and the warmth of water pressed intimate. Weightless among the stars!

On the back of the book daughters of dear friends play in my sun porch. Happiness is in their spirits. I wish the gift of happiness to be the spirit of this book. My spirit covers all seasons of life, and though there be sadness in these pages, it is offered with smile. For sadness and happiness are siblings; without them there is no family of feeling.

 I live on land sloping south down to garden, and on to pasture dotted with wild apple trees. A forested hill rises fifteen hundred feet away, and the Cold Hollow Mountains several miles yonder. To the west and north another hill of forest and deer snug my place from howling raw winds, and frigid arctic blows. But an open exposure to the south welcomes sun and the warm breezes traveling up the Champlain Valley

Excerpt
Sleep Wake

Dawn,
rising as soft
as your skin is bare
asks my hand to touch
the sleeping energy
of your form.
Intimate
as the joining
of sweet lips,
raw
as the dance
of wet tongues
my hands speak
in spirits of flesh
that wake to love.