With Autumn's Arrival a New Sheaf of Poems

With the first day of autumn I have finally gotten around to making the final changes to the manuscript of my new book a Sutra for the Creek.  It's a collection of poems that describes the ebbs and flows of life along Weesuck Creek over the course of a year.  Here's one of the poems from the collection appropriately enough entitled ...

Autumn’s Arrival

Come autumn
Every last crow

Seems to know

At least one of

The four Noble Truths

Each caw being a call

Of attachment  

To the pungent scent
Of the past prime earth

And crickets too

In their threnody

Evidence plenty of will

To hold September's
Fading warmth

For all that it’s worth

But a mind settled

Well on the mat
Heeds neither
Chirp nor caw as it

Welcomes autumn's arrival
Serenely consigned  
To the harvest of bounties

That accompanies
 Summer’s demise

Many thanks to Peter Rippon for providing twenty or more beautiful drawings, including the one above, that help bring the book to life.  And many thanks to Jane Schiowitz for her great contributions in layout and design.

Next week I plan to send the manuscript off the printer and will order a first box of books.  As for marketing, distribution and sales, I've adopted an entirely new strategy, shaped by the painful experience of past experiments in self-publishing.  I have decided to forego any effort to promote or sell the book, at least for the time being.  This first printing is more or less a private affair between me and the Creek.  The rest of you will just have to wait for the tide to change course, as surely it will.