Another large factor was that I went through a lengthy time of emotional doubt and crisis in which I felt that much of what I had hoped to accomplish in life had slipped past without being accomplished. Trite though it may be to say, it was perhaps a classic case of a "mid-life crisis". Things I'd hoped for never came. Things I should've done, I didn't do. Several health issues arose that made it clear to me that middle-age was largely over and I would never again be as healthy or as capable as I once had been. All these things, plus some serious shifts in a long-standing friendship, made me disinclined to write more poems.

Still, a few poems did get written—and at length enough accumulated to make another online volume worthwhile. This very likely will be the "last" such volume. As new poems are composed, I will probably continue adding them to this "volume" rather than creating new ones after some arbitrary number of poems is reached. As with all the previous volumes, I commend them to your attention for whatever pleasure and instruction you can find in them. I make no pretense of their being either particularly good or especially insightful. They simply are—and are a tiny, often blurry, window into my imagination for any who may wish to catch a glimpse of whatever resides there.

Charlottesville, Virginia
October 19, 2011

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