After

The poems in After are landmarks on a path to healing. About how I continue to reclaim myself after experiencing the erasure of any sense of personal power or agency or sense of adventure I might have felt “before”. Writing these poems was part of my healing process. I offer them now to other survivors and to anyone who wants to know something about surviving traumatic life events.

This work emerged over five decades about time lost to living in a formless, frozen mental state. These poems  are my road map back from that terrible place, how I began to find ways to take control of my own life and thoughts. How  I learned to live again as I learned how trauma affects our brains, bodies, behavior, spirit. I write about healing, and what it means to create a meaningful, connected and creative life, even with trauma’s footprints crossing my path.

My writing about trauma and healing is fueled by my gratitude for having survived on the planet long enough to heal and gain some wisdom.