This Child and His Tree

This collection of poetry and poetic essays reflects my experience of going deep into my own beingness. By following the ebb and flow of the tide of my own dissolutions and reconstructions, I have been able to access the source which has drawn me down the path I have walked, sometimes in darkness and sometimes in The Light. This book began in December 1985, following a near death experience, and got its first impulse toward the core issues in my life in October 1986. They concerned my father, Rufus Grant Smith, his fathering, being revealed then and in the subsequent poetry. Almost exactly a year later, in October 1987, a very closely related piece came forth. Then, after a discussion with a very intuitive lady, Murshida Vera Corda, a psychological plug was pulled from both my heart and my mind and The Father Poems began to flow. In June 1991, in a moment of enlightenment, it became clear that what I was writing about was, about myself rather than my father. There were more poems to be written about both my parents, as well as My Dialogues with Fear, but the main subject had become myself, or My Poems, which has now grown to well over two hundred poems and poetic essays. Lory's Tears and Laughter actually started on October 29, 1991 after I had attended a men's group where the intention was to go deep and find a representation of our inner child...and...I found Lory...with all of our resonating tears and laughter. This Tree and Me began on February 18,1995 with an amazing quote from The Revelation of Jesus Christ to St. John, that came through the novel The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington...which I highly recommend.