I started writing poetry when the Texas A&M Bonfire fell in 1999. I was searching for a way to express the emotion, the confusion, the trauma of that day. Even with the swarms of reporters and the images all over national news something seemed to be missing and so I turned to the imagery and rhythm offered by poetry. I was pleased with the result and found that I enjoyed writing, so I have continued to do so.

While writing "The Day the Sun Forgot to Rise" I wanted very much to bring some form of emotional closure to the poem - somehow to say "see here, look at the bright side of all this, it'll all be ok in the end." The problem was that wasn't real, it wasn't ok. I ended up leaving the poem where real life ended. . . without any real answers. Within the Christian sub-culture that I am a part of, there is a tendency to spiritualize things, to say "don't worry, God's in control" when in reality you are scared and confused and not at all sure where God is in this thing. Spiritualized answers offer quick, easy responses to the hard questions but they sound and feel fake; they fail to be satisfying either intellectually or emotionally. I decided to leave "The Day the Sun Forgot to Rise" unspiritualized; to let it hurt, to let it end in the death of twelve Aggies. It is ok to leave unanswered questions unanswered without molesting them with kind sentiments.

That is half of the theme of this collection. The other half lies behind that one. Somewhere behind the simple realities of life, with its hurts and pains and difficulties all thrown in, there is a Hope and a Joy. The superficially spiritualized answer of "don't worry, God's in control" not only sounds hollow, it misses the depths of comfort that can be lived when we acknowledge the fullness of life, both its joys and its pains, and then at the depths as well as the heights fall back into God's arms to say "I trust You even when I'm frightened, even when I don't understand, even when there is nothing but pain. I trust You because You proved Yourself worthy of trust on a Jerusalem hill two thousand years ago and because You have done so time and time again in my life."

For the most part, these poems tell my story of moving to the point in my life where I can say that. They tell of how I have come to trust God more and more through the years as I have encountered the fullness of life and tried to make sense of it.