Involved full-throttle in publishing and marketing my first book, and running my business, I had stopped writing. When I realized I was craving it, this was the first piece I wrote… to express how it felt to deprive myself of writing and then to start again.

I wrote this poem as a love letter to the Sea during my time in the Maldives.

This poem was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Kate, who spoke about hugging someone so tightly that she was aware of their hearts and wombs being pressed together.

This is my favorite poem that I have written so far. It occurred to me how the words that describe gardens and flowers and trees correlate to us and it literally poured out of me. It still makes me moan with resonance when I read it aloud.

I broke my ribs shortly after my father died. Apparently, it is common to do so… broken ribs are our body’s physical manifestation of grief. I wrote this poem to process the connection.

We often name the catalyst of our fear as the fear itself. In this case, we call it a fear of heights… but heights are merely a catalyst for the possibility of falling… which is the real fear underneath.

I rediscovered my love of vinyl records after a rainy weekend in Seattle visiting my then college-aged daughter, who played vinyl as we dressed for brunch. The memory imprinted, and I returned home to unbox my vinyl collection, began adding to it, and a Sunday ritual of playing my record albums was born. This poem is an homage to that ritual.