Choose Life: Poetry, Prose and Photography

The poems in Choose Life knock on your door like a familiar friend stopping by to share a cup of tea. Finding themselves a comfortable chair in your living room, they speak of universal themes offering reassurance, hope, and encouragement. Each poem shows up with a photograph so that you can see as well as hear their whisperings of wisdom and magic. Choose Life is dedicated to my 98-year-old father’s philosophy of life. His life’s purpose is encouraging people to look forward to growing older, to try something new, to be positive and to exercise daily. To help create this book, my father chose which of my poems and photographs best represent his philosophy of life.There are poems that offer inspiration: Choose Life (page 2)Go ahead, Choose Life.No - not fifteen minutes of fame, the untouchable stash of money in the vault, orthe unknown gorgeous person on your arm.Poems for fun: Grumbling (page 4)I want to kick a stone down the streetover and over again, until my nice, new black shoes are scuffedand I can grumble at the stone that caused it.Poems that offer Guidance: Don’t Hit the Tree. (page 62)From the top of the hill, all I see are wooden monolithsguarding a narrow passageway.My skis start to slip down the polished slope, as I begin my chant: Don’t hit the tree. Don’t hit the tree! Nature Poems: Redwood (page 40)A tree passed me by the other day, as it journeyed into the next century.Poems that explore going Beyond Expectations (page 66)What if I sailed beyond expectations and fears?Kept going into the unknownbeyond the bounds of predictabilityover the edge of - what?