Writing this first post here as an author gives me pause to consider what I'm hoping to say and accomplish as a writer. Why do I write? What do I hope to give? There are a couple of answers to these questions.

On the one hand, there is the joy of writing for its own sake-- the moments of sitting down to cast my nets into the ineffable that end in encounters with grace, with insight, with the perceptions of falcons, and with the boom of circus cannons launching us into existence. These experiences give way naturally to the desire to share them. The fullness that one finds when connections are forged with the quiet center of one's own heart is sustained only in its extension to one another.

What we recover from these expeditions into the unknown is never for us alone. The truth of who we are must be given away to be at all, and so a second answer to the question of my purpose as a writer is that I hope to provoke a smile or two. I hope to entertain and inspire, and to be part of what brings us back home gently to ourselves.

My first book-- A Cannon, a Heart, and Now This...-- is a collection of poems I hope will begin the dialogue between your heart and mine, as shared moments of insight and appreciation flicker across the pages.

Thank you--
Michael