"The Will of Mary" was a poem I wrote very early in comparison to most of my poems.  I wrote it while a devotee of Our Lady of the Roses, Mary Help of Mothers Shrine, which at the time was at the site of the Vatican Pavilion site in Flushing Meadow Park in the borough of Queens in New York City.  Here, on various Roman Catholic feast days and on Sunday mornings, Roman Catholics who had read the transcriptions of messages from Jesus and Mary to the visionary Veronica Lueken would gather and recite the rosary.  I read the poetry, also, which was given to Veronica by Saint Therese of Lisieux.  I loved the simplicity of this poetry and decided to imitate it with my own.  In this mindset and conscious of the difficulties promised to the disciples of this "shrine" in the messages, I wrote "The Will of Mary."  A priest once told me the poem did not reflect the truth because, according to him, Mary did not know what was going to happen to Jesus.  In her heart, I think she did.

"The Little Shepherd of Peace" is one of my favorite poems and to a great extent I aspire to be like the little shepherd in so far as he is empty of all hope but God's love (always, but not only, manifested in everyone whom we meet) and eventually becomes more and more aware of Christ whom he follows.

I wrote "The City of God" when I lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in an apartment with two strangers.  I had a little room and we shared a kitchen.  I had little money and spent many of my days reciting poetry in Central Park and asking for donations.  I wrote many poems during this period, mostly English sonnets.  I was quite lost to the world, in many ways, but remember feeling very much at peace one night and joyful in the presence of God in my life; hence, the source of my inspiration for the poem.  This poem is firmly in my conscience and I often find myself reciting lines from it, e.g., "Acceptance of life's rebukes and sorrows ..."

The other poems all have their creation histories as well.  I will write about them as time and grace permit.