Overview

This is a book composed of small moments: each one consists of a photo and a small poem. When each is viewed through the lens of the reader's heart, it is the author's hope that it will open into a larger moment, rich with personal meaning. This way of thinking-that the moment holds limitless meaning-began in the author's childhood. Her father was an outdoorsman who delighted in sharing the smallest of discoveries-secretive Trailing Arbutus in early spring, minty teaberries at the edge of the woods-and how living with an awareness of and love for them is endlessly enriching. Her mother had a strong love of color, but it was destined to be ended by blindness. The poet remembers her mother saying with poignant urgency, ""Look, Kathy! Look at those yellow leaves. And then, sadly, ""Yellow is the only color I can still see."" For all these intervening years-sixty, at least-color has called to the author, often in her mother's voice, ""Kathy, look!"" The author guesses that you, the reader, also have a lifetime of such happenings that have shaped the gifts you have to share. It is her hope that this book of small poems can be a tribute to life's small moments-moments that have taken on enhanced value, moments burnished by the understanding that, as we age, each one holds the potential to be the ultimate moment. As seen through the eyes of an elder in a culture now shaped by the young, may these photos and the tiny poems that accompany them help you savor this very moment.

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9780997795684

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Kathleen Kramer's early years were spent in Pennsylvania's coal mining and farming region, where life was lived in the midst of a large extended family and influenced by the solidity of the earth and the rhythm of the seasons. At 19, she left for the city and spent five memorable years working in Washington, DC, for the Department of Defense. There followed a three-year stint in Maine where subsistence farming took her back to the land. New York State became the family's next home where Kathy and her husband Jack reared their three sons, Andrew, Ian, and Kyle, in Northport, a small historical village on Long Island Sound. During that time and over a period of 10 years of balancing family, classes, and work, Kathy earned a BA at Empire State College and an MLS at Long Island University. After their sons were launched into the world, Kathy and Jack moved to the Finger Lakes area of NY where Kathy worked as Director of the small library of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, a Cornell University Affiliate. It was in the stunning setting of the gorges and lakes of Central New York that Kathy began to explore a long-deferred interest. Writing circles offered by Zee Zahava, beloved Ithaca writer and Poet Laureate of Tompkins County, opened the door to an adventure in creativity that has richly blessed Kathy's life. The 33 years that followed were filled with writing and performing plays, participating in poetry critiquing groups, publishing her work in various literary journals, and presenting readings throughout the region. Now, Kathy says she finds herself turning away from writing longer works and is discovering sudden inspiration and joy in writing small poems, like those in this book. As one's life, by necessity, narrows in scope, those gifts of nature and everyday life that are close at hand can be seen in a way that heightens their beauty and calls forth their often-profound meaning. It is these small gifts that are offered in this book. Kathy says she is privileged to share them with you and she suggests that this is a book to be read slowly, one photo, one tiny poem at a time. As one of her poems says, to be in the moment is to be in the eternal.

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