Every journey starts with a single first step. For me, that first step began in March 1994, and was by way of a dream. I awoke one morning with the vivid recollection of a dream still clear in my mind, and with the following words echoing around my head, “there is an island I have seen, in dream and wanderings of the night”.

Those words became the first two lines of the first poem in this book. With many of our dreams of course, the precise meaning behind the visualization and the enactment of its many scenes are often a meaningless blur once one is awake. Not with this dream. There was crystal clarity of what it was all about. What followed was a journey. I hope you enjoy the trip.

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” ~ Sir Thomas Gray.

“There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes.” ~ William