Letters to the Moon....

I live a life of words. This may not come as a surprise to you, because I am a poet. But it surprised me. I began my life as a poet three years ago. But I have been surrounded by words long before that. As a three year old child I read words from books. As a young child I learned to sing words in song. As a youth I read words in study. I have worked in a library for over a decade. Libraries are such sacred spaces. Libraries are sanctuaries of words. My library has close to 60,000 books in it. Every book, be it a novel, an instructional book, a self-help book, a foreign language manual, every book is filled with words. Every book contains someone’s story. Libraries are cavernous formations of words. Just imagine the vast resources. Everyone has a story to tell. You might find it appropriate that I work in a library, because I am a poet. You might find it ironic. The irony didn’t occur to me until recently. I am surrounded by words. I have words in my head all the time; u...

I have been working for several weeks now on my books of poetry. I will have two books in English and two books in Spanish: “I am Hope” and “The Bigger Picture”. The poetry in the books will be from this blog, as well as my first blog, the Words of Hope.  http://www.esperanzahabla.blogspot.com/   However, in going through my poetry over the last three years, I found that there are many poems that never made it to the blog. Some were too personal, some were written for a particular person, some I didn’t think good enough to publish. I’ve since had a change of heart. Everything will be going in the books. It has been very interesting for me, compiling these works, getting everything together, in the order in which it was written. I like to do that, to read poetry, books in the order in which they were written, listen to music in the order in which it was written. Through this you can see (and hear) the evolution of the artist in their craft. Going through my r...

I lay in bed as I begin to wake. Consciousness leads to a stream of thought. I open my eyes. I see that it is still night time-or very early morning. I decide to go unconscious again. Just then a cat leaps on to my bed, using my pillow as a trampoline to bounce to their end target-the windowsill behind my bed. Well I’m awake , I think to myself. That was just one of many curious happenings in my home since I have adopted two little kittens, Kit and Caboodle. (Those are not their real names. I am calling them by these names to protect their identities.) I adopted the kittens several months ago from a local animal shelter. I feel good knowing I rescued two kittens from a bleak fate. In the months that they have been in my home they have filled it with laughter and light and love. The two kittens are not from the same litter; however, I brought them home the same day, and the two have bonded together as if they were sisters. They play together, groom each other, even cuddle up ...

The other day I was approached by an online friend-he was upset and needed to talk. I wrote this person and asked what was wrong. He then stated that he had just broken up with his girlfriend. It was obvious that he needed to talk about it, and I was more than happy to let him talk. This young man asked me many questions, most of which were on the topic of how to recover from a broken heart. I told him that we have all been rejected, and we have all had a broken heart. He then asked me a profound question: “How do you trust again?” To me, that was a deeply profound question. At first, I wasn’t sure how he meant it. I wasn’t sure if he was asking how he could trust the person that had broken his heart; I also wondered if he was asking how to trust in people again, since he had just had such a heart breaking experience. I began telling him a quote I had recently heard online: “Trust is like a crumpled up piece of paper. Once it has been crumpled up, it will never be the same again...