Thanks Cat for sharing your thoughts. Sometimes a few words can go a long way and it sounds like mine did. Puts a smile on my face to know that!

best wishes, val

Thanks Al for your thoughtful and understanding of review of my work. It's nice to know you find my style 'refreshing, like a sunbeam cutting through a storm'....what lovely image and poetic way for me to reflect back on when I'm writing! Also thanks for the 'nit-pic' and you're so right....sometimes when I'm trying to get my thoughts down, I take short cuts before actually doing a more formal draft and for the most part catch them, but in this case I obviously missed it and shall correct it post haste!
As for Rod McKuen, I'm so happy you mentioned him. It's been a long time since I've read any of his works but as I recall I liked the reads. I've never been a student of poetry, and have never read much of those poets who are well known. If you ask me my favorite poet, I'd say Dr. Suess! I find him to be somewhat of a genius really. He was more than a poet, and his imagination knew no boundaries! But a subject for another time. I guess in school we had to study certain poets but the thing I disliked about that was having to do assignments where we had to translate and/or paraphrase their works. If the teacher didn't agree with what we wrote, we were told we were wrong which lead to a lousy grade. That never made much sense to me because even if I took something in a different way then that teacher, how could he/she say I was wrong? Were they in the person's head when the poem was written? Did the person send them a note saying, 'here is what my thoughts are?' Most likely not, especially those who were already dead! I remember when my older son had to take 12 of Shakespeare's, sonnets or at least parts of them and paraphrase them, not that I should admit this, but at times I did help with homework especially English; so I took on the daunting task. Somehow, someway I managed to muddled through and he (we/I) got a B+! I was quite both shocked and pleased because Shakespeare for the most part was not one of my favorites. Anyhow I've rambled long enough. Long story short, I appreciate that you appreciate my poem, and my style of writing. I don't feel the need to defend it, because I like it too....LOL!

Best wishes,
val