As a young child, I fell in love with poetry—reading it and trying to write it myself.  Choosing the right words and placing them together in a poem helped me explore what I was thinking and how I was feeling.  I often was moved by the wonders of nature.  That is how I came to write the poem Moon.

It was always a joy to look up and wonder about the mysteries, sights, and lights in the sky.  In night’s darkness, I was fascinated by the appearance of the moon and its changing face.  I noticed that when the moon was full, it lit up my backyard like a spotlight.

Sometimes in the morning, when I gazed up at the sky, I would notice a barely visible ghost of a moon as if someone had tried to erase it.  Every month I watched as the moon grew bigger and got smaller again.  Even when it totally disappeared from sight I felt reassured that it would be back.  Observing the cycles of the moon I learned a lot about how nature and life worked.

My book Moon started out as a conversation with the moon in words that rhymed.  Soon I realized that I needed to write a poem that did not rhyme.  This would give me the freedom to express the openness and vastness of the sky where the moon always returned like my good friend.  What does the moon mean to you?