The Timid Leaper

About the Book

Catastrophes and Trophies
This collection is actually the combination and slight rearrangement of four separate volumes of verse; almost all of these poems were written in the calendar year 2001. It's not much to show for a year of human life-- that rich mystery we are twisted into by such a resolute hand. The main emphasis of this collection (as I hope will be quite clear) is Nature. Nature and Naturalism are not quite the same thing, however, and I have always had my own disagreements with the various proponents of those who took too dogmatically Thoreau's painful premise "Simplify, simplify, simplify." The sub-title is "inner nature poems," and that is to help show that the weather for humans is never merely a matter of what's over our heads-- it's what's in our hearts as well.
--from the Introduction