I sit in my apartment in Berkeley, California, pick up a pen and a pad of paper, and begin to write. For a period of time, inspired after I attended a reading by Mary Oliver, I took up the challenge each day to listen deeply to the spirit speaking softly to my soul and commit that to paper.

Poetry affords the opportunity to have a dialogue with the pad of paper. The paper serves as a dialogical partner, a spiritual companion, whose empty page is the willing recipient of whatever lies in my heart and longs to be heard.

Sometimes I think of poetry as a dream on paper—a way to translate the impulses of the soul into shareable forms.