Do not write another man’s poem. Write your own even if you suspect that Hopkins and Frost are untouchable. Love God; keep hero worship underfoot. You are born to be a truth-teller, not words’ slave. Share your truth when critics smile. Remember, from goodness we come, and false things uttered about us have no permanent home in this world or heaven. This world is one nation filled with truth uttered between men and women, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, children and old folk. Our world is the home of faith and courage, love and laughter, human holiness tested on love’s journey through fire and sorrow.Gather near this poet’s fire growing dim with each New Year. Make time for one last series of words and poetic images from him in the best of all possible worlds. Neither earthquake, nor Voltaire, nor Darwin’s flock, nor poverty divert me from my praise of this world through poetry and images. This world is the best of all possible worlds dear reader, and you are members of the best of all possible families – the human family. Ask, through poetry and images, who you are in the womb, the waiting room, the schoolroom, the marriage feast, before the tomb? You are precious, walking within your shadow of uniqueness, no two persons looking at the outside of things from the inside of the soul in the s
