Remembering Softly: A Life in Poems (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780989101455)

Honest poetry coming out of everyday life, joys and struggles, keen observations of nature, family, friends, and faith.

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.

From the INTRODUCTION (copyright 2016):

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.

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.

Contents:

I.Poems from Adult Years (in reverse chronology)

In the Cleft of a Cold White Rock

Weights of Glory

Earth and Heaven

Snow On Good Friday

God's Anvil

A Choice

Glory

Gladwin

A Man With a Sword

Consolation

In My Heart an Altar

Longing For Home

Friends

Sitting In the Grass On an Autumn Day

Deborah

After the Reunion

God's Inexplicable Work

Living Wounds

Autumn Walk Along the Poudre River

Rhymes For Grandchildren

Waves On the Cladach

After Saying Good-bye

If I Hadn t Looked

On a Walk In Ferndale

A Walk At Dusk

Affirmation

Evening Light

Three 'First' Poems

God Plus One Is a Winning Majority

A River Is Flowing

Cleansing, Healing and Deliverance

Footprints In the Snow

He Calms the Storm

Window Washer

Antidote

God's Husbandman

Beauty

A Friend

Wings of Faith

Why Me?

Blue Asters

Leafy Lament

She Prays

It's Fall

Shadows

Release

Autumn

Renewal

Sleep Baby

II. Poems from Childhood and Teen-age Years (written under the pen name Katie Estell)

Meditation

Daydreams

A Book

My Thoughts

Dreams

Spring

I Have a Friend

For Us

To Larry

He Loves Me

Limerick

I Like To Eat!

Delight

Solution For a Soul In Torment

Joy

It's a Beautiful Day