In the daily improvements of ability one finds the beauty and richness of "getting
there". The human brain is such a deep and lovely thing. The evolution of a life means
"checking things out," seeing what works. Sometimes there is hurt, sometimes there is sadness It is part of the evolution. Let it be so.

A Soldier's Pay tells the real story of all citizen-soldiers - how do you do both
jobs and be normal at either? From his own five years as an infantryman, the author
shows the ambivalence always hanging over the soldier's head. As "savior of
his country when the guns begin to shoot" [Kipling], and as a mild misfit to
anything like "regular" civilian life, it sometimes gets tough matching his job to
his natural human instinct. Look closely at most combat photos of soldiers, Marines,
or sailors over the past century, especially after a battle: Helmets off, shoulders sagging, fatigue with it all -- what you see are living, natural antiwar statements.

Silver is bite-sized fun - sort of like your favorite cereal for a long breakfast.
It will also only take you that long consume the whole book. Each poem goes after just one main thought. Some are very direct, some a bit cleverer, but all easy to "get it." The author gives you twenty-five nuggets of silver for your pleasure.

Conversations with a Patriarch is the author talking with his poet-farmer great-
grandfather. That patriarch was found to have written poetry for most of his life,
and the poor author is trying hard to match that old gent's skill! The two persons
can clearly only have a conversation by "swapping" poems back and forth in the book,
since the elder man has long since passed along. It is a book-long stage for
"dueling poetry"!