As a very little girl I never gave much thought to the written word, until I was eleven years old and in the 6th grade. Each of us were required to write a poem. Mine was on flowers, and from that moment on, my creative writing blossomed. For me, poetry is imagination with wings, free to go in any direction without bounds or definitions, painted words that come alive on the canvas of the poetic mind. Poetry excites the adventure within us, whether it is through writing or reading it. It takes us on a journey across many worlds, galaxies, journeys where parameters don't exist, words flowing in the mesmerizing power of speech and emotion. Gentle, it is not fragile, connecting writers of the past, present and future, its words bringing enlightened enchantment and wonder. Poetry has taken me into the space of a billion glittering stars. It is everything thought of, and yet the words are always new. For me, poetry is the lifeblood of the written word, the heartbeat of the world, and the birth of the universe. Like a bowl humming in the spiritual hand, poetry is thus spun by the pen. The gift is in reading and listening, a magical, inspiring realm where dreams really do come true. My poetry in this book does not follow the alphabetical order. It begins from the start of what I wrote first down to the last. It is my hope that it will instill you with all that a poem can give: respect, love, hope, joy and dreams. For it was a dream, a tiny spark that this book, my first book, was born. Ronda Dee Mullins