This volume of my poetry is devoted to love. Love comes in many guises, from the love we have for a partner or parent, to the love we feel for our child. Or it may be the love we feel for a pet, or an animal's love for its owner or another animal. I make no bones about having a sweet tooth, so it may even be an overwhelming love for sweets or cake Love can be pyrotechnical and urgent or something steadfast, quiet and strong. To love or be loved transforms us. The poem on the next page, for example, recounts the extraordinary events that occurred on the night my mother died. She loved owls and they came in droves to sit on the roof of the house and the surrounding farm buildings, hooting loudly. It was as if they had come to call her home. As John Lennon so rightly wrote: "And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make."