Shows
Love, Words & PoetryNew House, New LifeI introduce a newly revised poem and share our love letters on our new house.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-07-2110 minLove, Words & PoetryLooking at the New Job 7/13/2025The podcast opens in Dallas in August, where I used to run before everything heated up, shares our love letters on Wes's new job in San Francisco, and closes with a poem lamenting the death of my poetry mentor of 40 years, Colette Inez.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-07-1407 minLove, Words & PoetryGrowing toward Unity (7/6/2025)I open with a poem written after my best friend’s brother, who was a kind religious brother, had died. It is a poem full of hope, as are our love letters and the closing poem on mercy.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-07-0707 minLove, Words & PoetryNew BeginningsMy poems look back at a fall in Schenectady, New York, and toward our new home in Northern California, while our love letters reflect our attitudes toward the upcoming cross-country move.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-06-3007 minLove, Words & PoetryFacing ChangeI have poems about summer and almost summer bookending our love letters about flying to California to look for a house.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-06-2308 minLove, Words & PoetryProdigal FathersI begin with a poem on the parable of the prodigal son, which has often been described as being about a prodigal father, pivot to our love letters on selling our house after we had made the decision to move to California, and return to a poem seeing God as a Trinity dancing.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-06-1610 minLove, Words & PoetryMyth, Legend, and New BabiesThe poems that serve as bookends are another very early one, from my poetry workshop with New York poet Colette Inez before I got married, and my most recent one, with a look at tuning forks and our love letters on our new baby in between.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-06-0808 minLove, Words & PoetryLove and PoetryTwo Valentines bookend our love letters on being married.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-06-0207 minLove, Words & PoetryLeaving Behind and Moving ForwardBeginning with an overview of the New Jersey spring we would leave behind if we moved to California, I share our love letters, where we considered our decision, and leap forward to May 2025 and our first granddaughter's graduation from Law School.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-05-2607 minLove, Words & PoetryConflict and MarginI move from evening to how we manage conflict in our love letters to how I thrive with margin in my life.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-05-1907 minLove, Words & PoetryChildren and FlowersI look back to my visits to Mexico in high school when I was stunned by the vibrant beauty of the bougainvillea everywhere, and the word of the day is Teotihuacán, the ruins we explored when I was in Mexico with my parents. Our love letters speak of the changes we experienced after welcoming our third child to our family, and the closing poem celebrates scenes from life with our son, our sixth child, a fitting end to this podcast on Mother's Day.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-05-1211 minLove, Words & PoetryBlueMy poems focus on blues: blue days and blue space. Our love letters reveal our feelings about Wes returning to work after his time at home with our new baby, Amy.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-04-1408 minLove, Words & PoetryBeautiful SeasonsBeautiful seasons and our love letters on whether to move to Northern California.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-04-0709 minLove, Words & PoetryBeautiful SeasonsBeautiful seasons and our love letters before we finally decided to begin before we decided to divide to Northern California.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-04-0709 minLove, Words & PoetryThings They Are A-Changing (3-30-25)I read a poem reflecting ideas on change by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, share our thoughts on a major change in our lives, and end with a trip to Muir Woods.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-03-3108 minLove, Words & PoetryWork and ArtI have two very different poems that illustrate how birds lead us to freedom, along with love letters on how we feel about the other's work.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-03-2408 minLove, Words & PoetryOf Flowers and TimeI open with a recent poem on a fractal flower, include our love letters on how we spent our weekends, and close with a reflection on time and timelessness.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-03-1707 minLove, Words & PoetryLove and CreativityMy first poem is the result of a major revision of 5 lines I dashed down just as I was finishing the work I needed to do in order to graduate from college. Our love letters look forward to the birth of our third child, and the closing poem is from last year.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-03-1009 minLove, Words & PoetryNorthern California, Babies, and Night Music 2/23/2025I open with a poem about Northern California, where I resisted the changed geography from the East Coast, share our love letters as we looked forward to the birth of our third child, born in New York City but in 3 months accompanied us all to Concord, California. I end in Southern California, where I've lived now for over 40 years.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-02-2409 minLove, Words & PoetrySummer DreamingI look at marriage in Genesis, in our love letters, and dream of summer in the middle of winter in the final poem.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-02-1010 minLove, Words & PoetrySeason 3, Episode 3: AdjustmentsTwo poems written as I was trying to adjust to the geographical differences between New Jersey and California bracket love letters we wrote as we were discovering new relationships with God.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-02-0310 minLove, Words & PoetryOf Phonics and FuguesI include two versions of "St. John's Alphabet Fugue," 30 years apart, with a description of a fugue, and our love letters on our oldest daughter starting her own "alphabet fugue" in kindergarten.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-01-2010 minLove, Words & PoetryWinter Victories 1/5/2025I discover winter victories in the garden and in poetry making, along with our love letters on the masks we wear and how they affect our relationship. For an overall picture of what we learned during our marriage, you might also want to order my book, Spectacular Marriage: 10 Surprising Ways to Divorce Proof Your Marriage, available at Barnes & Noble or on my website, greenvisionsbooks.godaddysites.com. May words add more love and poetry to your days!2025-01-1310 minLove, Words & PoetryReasons for RejoicingMy poems today look at the expected birth of one of our children, and the blessing of marriage, and our love letters reflect our feelings as we approached the upcoming birth.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-12-1607 minLove, Words & PoetryDECEMBER DAYSI read two different versions of my poem, "December 8," and our love letters look at how our approach to Christmas has changed since we started sharing our feelings more deeply.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-12-0909 minLove, Words & PoetryMythology, Love, and the MoonI begin with a modern take on the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne, read our love letters on our children's love, and end with a salute to the full moon.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-11-2508 minLove, Words & PoetryGrace by GraceI detail moments of grace, whether early roses, love letters on how to give more abundantly to others, or end-of-season gardens.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-11-1110 minLove, Words & PoetryPoetry and PaintPoems bookend this podcast, with a foray into paint colors, and love letters on poetry, too!May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-11-0414 minLove, Words & PoetryTreasures in Cathedrals and RelationshipsMy newest poem is a reflection on a verse from Ephesians that sees us as being built into a temple for the Spirit. I use two lines from the poem to provide our phrase of the week. Our love letters ponder how we can make each other first in our lives. And I close with a short poem dedicated to Emily Dickinson, which has a slight echo of her inimitable voice.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-11-0411 minLove, Words & PoetryMarriage PerspectivesStarting with a poetic reflection on marriage in Genesis and a look at "the serpent," our love letters show how dialogue can inform decisions, and end with a joyful poem celebrating marriage.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-10-0709 minLove, Words & PoetryAutumn ReflectionsMy poems reflect on crossing the border into fall, and our love letters focus on all that we have gained through daily dialogueMay words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-09-3007 minLove, Words & PoetryLove, Prayer, and HummingbirdsI introduce a roller skating nun who enlivened third grade for me, share our love letters on praying together, and welcome a hummingbird I met on an early morning walk who brought the dawn.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-09-2310 minLove, Words & PoetryLove and HopeI read two poems about love and hope, and our love letters sharing how we want to change for the sake of the other.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-09-1607 minLove, Words & PoetryUNITY AND DIVISIONI read a poem echoing Emily Dickinson, commentary on two Greek goddesses, love letters on what makes us united, and a final poem inspired by the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-08-1211 minLove, Words & PoetryDealing with PressureI am reading one poem this week in two very different versions--the firs was written when I was a sophomore in high school wrestling with Chemistry. The most recent was revised this past June. The poem deals with the pressure of time and our love letters look at how we help each other cope with all kinds of pressure.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-08-0510 minLove, Words & PoetryTime and DialogueI read two poems--one from our days in New Jersey, when we first began to dialogue on deep feelings, and the other from our move to Northern California when I discovered how different the climate and geography were and how profoundly the differences affected me. In between, I read our letters on how dialogue was changing us.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-07-2207 minLove, Words & PoetryAbundance in JulyMy poem looks at all the things that can distract me when I try to ponder abundance, and our love letters speak about what can distract us from each other.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-07-1510 minLove, Words & PoetryCelebrating the Summer SolsticeWe're taking a summer romp in the garden, with a poem on the longest day in my garden, and a reference to Monet's gardens at Giverny, followed by a couple of longer love letters where Wes and I celebrate our love and look at ways to make it even better.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-07-0127 minLove, Words & PoetryFrom Creation to the Modern WorldCreation fills the poem of the week, and marriage in the modern world is the subject of our love letters, as we ponder ways we are pulled apart in spite of wanting to grow closer. This elucidates love as, not a feeling, but a decision we have to make over and over again if we want our love to keep growing and deepening.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-06-2410 minLove, Words & PoetryWhat We AppreciateI open with an ode to a hummingbird breaking open the dawn, read our love letters on what we appreciate in ourselves, the other, and our coupleness. Then I read a brand new poem, maybe not even finished, just for the sheer exhilaration of it.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-06-1709 minLove, Words & PoetryListen with Your HeartOur poems focus on falling in love in high school, and moving toward marriage in college. The love letters look at areas of our relationship where we needed to listen to each other more deeply, with our hearts.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-06-0309 minLove, Words & PoetryMarriage, Work, and ChildrenI open with a poetic domestic scene and include love letters that look at how we are called to make each other first, and how our work and parenting impact our marriage.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-05-2010 minLove, Words & PoetryChallenge to ChangeI begin with a prize-winning poem and a word of the day that reveals an unknown challenge to change. In our love letters, we were challenged to make some changes in our relationship which ultimately led to greater closeness in both the way we listened to each other and how we spent our time.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-05-0609 minLove, Words & PoetryMODERN WORLD MARRIAGEThe poem of the day is a lighthearted description of energetic embodiment along with a more serious set of love letters where we confront areas where we have fallen into a "married singles" lifestyle and face the need to make daily decisions to love and grow closer.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-04-2911 minLove, Words & PoetryLOVING SINGLE-HEARTEDLYI open with a lighthearted poem about raccoons in my back yard, then define scofflaw, a term I use pejoratively about those masked robbers, and read our love letters, as we looked at ways we could be more single-hearted in our love for each other. Because the poem is a long one, I read it once more to end the podcast.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-04-1512 minLove, Words & PoetryBecoming VulnerableI share two poems with titles in French, their meanings, and the first love letters Wes and I shared on our Deeper Training Weekend as we were preparing to become a presenting Team for World Wide Marriage Encounter. We learned to become more vulnerable with each other, and that vulnerability drew us closer to each other.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-04-0809 minLove, Words & PoetryHarmony and LightThe opening poem describes a Lenten concert in which I was asked to play almost at the last minute, which was a glorious experience. Our love letters looked at how we felt when we were chosen to be a presenting Team Couple for Marriage Encounter. The closing poem celebrates a panorama of spring on March 19, St. Joseph's Day.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-03-2507 minLove, Words & PoetryFrolicking and JoyWe have a "Bacchanale" among the animals to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and a reflection on what amazes us about our marriage. May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-03-1807 minLove, Words & PoetryMusical & Non-Verbal CommunicationBoth poems that bookend this podcast focus on music, and our love letters celebrate the new dimensions we experience in non-verbal communication.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-03-1109 minLove, Words & PoetryWRESTLING WITH FEELINGSI had positive feedback from reading one poem twice last week, so I will be sharing a longer poem at the beginning and ending of this podcast. The poem is wrestling with the depths of grief, and our love letters are looking at how we learned to understand each other's feelings at a deeper level.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-03-0411 minLove, Words & PoetryWeaving and UnderstandingA prize-winning poem on weaving elucidates life, and our love letters reveal new depths of understanding. To read the poem and see the photograph of a weaver in Ireland who inspired the poem, go to www.greenvisionsgreetings.comLook at the Gallery, and click on Poetry Cards, and look for "The Weaver."May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-02-2612 minLove, Words & PoetryBirds, Music, and HappinessI have two poems featuring birds and music, and love letters where we reflect on how our love grows as we focus on how the other has worked to make us happy.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-02-1909 minLove, Words & PoetryPrayer, Chronos, and KairosI open with a poem pondering the words of prayer, read our love letters delighting in how we have grown more deeply in love since our Marriage Encounter Weekend, look at the differences between chronos and kairos time, and describe an experience of kairos.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-02-1208 minLove, Words & PoetryLove GrowsPoems and letters on love and blessings.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-02-0507 minLove, Words & PoetryBlessings and PraiseI open with a poem imagining a leper coming upon the scene of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the Bible. The word of the day is the Hebrew "Berakah," meaning benediction or blessing, and in our love letters we share a quality we see in the other that is a blessing. I close with a poem about the blessing of the intoxicating fragrance of freesias.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-01-2909 minLove, Words & PoetryPraise and DelightI open with a poem of praise, define the French word "éclat," share love letters that rejoice in reunion after a long day, and close with a poem on the little miracles emerging from the Perseid meteor shower.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-01-2207 minLove, Words & PoetryAllegretto ChangesI open with a poem celebrating the influence of birds, delve into the intricacies of timing in music, read our love letters rejoicing in the changes we made within the first month after our Marriage Encounter Weekend, and close with a colorful tribute to the surprising exuberance of bougainvillea.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-01-1509 minLove, Words & PoetryDeep Acceptance and SpringI open with a poem on death and how it affects us, share letters on learning to accept each other at a deeper level, and close with a poem of hope based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2024-01-0809 minLove, Words & PoetryHealing HurtsI open with a poem describing the pain of loss when we first moved to the West Coast and I realized that my dreams of a new life were not exactly realistic. The love letters I share are ones where we confront how we hurt each other and how we can heal those wounds. Later we began to ask each other's forgiveness every night for any hurts we had caused that day, and that continued to help us grow in love and healing. My closing poem is one I started a long time ago and finished recently, reflecting on...2023-12-1807 minLove, Words & PoetryFrom Luxembourg to Mt. RushmoreThe opening poem reflects on a journey our daughter Becky took to Luxembourg and the Netherlands over a Thanksgiving vacation. It was odd to think of her in the Netherlands where some of her ancestors had lived generations ago. Our love letters focus on how our relationship keeps improving as our communication becomes more profound. And the closing poem views the profound effect our visit to Mt. Rushmore had on us.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-12-1107 minLove, Words & PoetrySpelunkers of the HeartWe open with a poem shaped like a tree, our love letters describe what it feels like to be needed, and we close with a poem investigating the love of children.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-12-0406 minLove, Words & PoetryOn the Cusp of FreedomToday's poem, "On the Cusp of May" takes a poetic look at a leap into freedom, while our love letters ponder a leap into the mysteries of couple power.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-11-2710 minLove, Words & PoetryThe Artist's LifeThis episode gathers up the gifts and joys of spring and summer, in nature, family, and a blossoming marriage, experienced by the artist-poet from our early years on the East Coast after making our Marriage Encounter Weekend, to the West Coast when our marriage bloomed with three more children, including our son, whose birthday we celebrate today, appropriately born on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address to thrill his Lincoln-loving father. A good collection as we head into Thanksgiving!May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-11-2010 minLove, Words & PoetryGardening from East Coast to WestIn Episode 19, I share our love letters looking at my passion for gardening when we lived in New Jersey, the Garden State. They are bookended by poems I wrote about spring and summer on the West Coast, with a quick glance at the Perseid Meteor Shower.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-11-1307 minLove, Words & PoetryA Symphony of Crickets, Work, Riding, and WritingI open with a poem that turns out to have been slightly skewed, correct the error in the word of the day, share love letters that wrestle with work issues, and end with a poem singing horseback riding as a metaphor for writing.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-11-0607 minLove, Words & PoetryDiscovering New Ways to CommunicateI begin and end with the same poem, "Eye Openers," which describes my first encounter with poetry in sign language, introduced to me by our daughter Nicole Son, who was a linguistic minor in college. She explains more about it in her guest appearance on its podcast. She has provided a link to a contemporary performance of poetry in ASL with an English introduction, "Title: Eye Music" from The Treasure by Ella Mae Lentz - YouTube, google.com. I follow with our love letters exploring the possibility of becoming more involved with World Wide Marriage Encounter; we decided in...2023-10-3011 minLove, Words & PoetryWrestling with NatureOur poetic bookends describe apparently mild assaults on trees and a plunge into the overwhelming richness of green winters in Southern California. In between, we return to our New Jersey love letters where Wes and I look at how we think our daughters are turning out--they were 5 and 2 at the time--and how we felt about that. We were serious about raising them well from the moment we first knew we were going to be parents.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-10-2307 minLove, Words & PoetryBuilding DreamsThis episode includes poetry about Tor House, the home of poet Robinson Jeffers and an explanation of how his home was built, love letters from when we returned from our Bermuda vacation after our Marriage Encounter Weekend, and a poetic reaction to the magical realism of novelist Gabriel García Marquez.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-10-0910 minLove, Words & PoetryDeeper InThis episode is bookmarked by poems from one end of the United States to the other, from New York City to San Juan Capistrano in California with a note on the story of the swallows coming back to San Juan Capistrano, and our letters delve more deeply into building a shared spiritual lifeMay words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-09-1807 minLove, Words & PoetrySunrise and Hiking Mt. Tabor in IsraelWe open with a sunrise poem, look at how we approached prayer in the early days of our marriage, and close with a reflection on hiking Mt. Tabor in Israel.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-09-0909 minLove, Words & PoetryCROSS COUNTRY ADVENTURESWe open with a poem delineating the geographical upheavals in moving from the East Coast to the West, followed by learning more about each other in our love letters, a trip to Mt. Rushmore memorialized in a poem, and a vision of greatness in our lives.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-08-2807 minLove, Words & PoetryThe Hippie Twins, Love, and MarriageI open with a poem that carries me back to my senior year of high school, and read love letters with deep reflections on the meaning of being a couple, and end with a poem with further insights into love.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-08-1420 minLove, Words & PoetryBirthday EpisodeThe podcast opens with a poem with Biblical echoes, a word straight out of the Bible, follows with love letters reflecting on our Encounter with Self discoveries and our willingness to listen with our hearts to the other's feelings of hurt and even anger, which led to acceptance and even greater love. We close with a poem of joy at the dedication of our new church after the old one had burned down.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-08-0709 minLove, Words & PoetrySummer & Winter & Summer AgainIntroduction to Lime Ridge and Mt. Diablo in Northern California, followed by love letters with increasing intimacy, and ending with a poem set in Manhattan in the winter, followed by a quick return to summer in Southern CaliforniaMay words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-07-1708 minLove, Words & PoetryLove, Family, and FriendshipThis episode opens with two poems, one written during Operation Desert Storm, and the other while on a walk pushing our fifth daughter in her stroller. Our love letters describe some of the closest moments we had experienced in our marriage, and I close with a poem written when we were visiting the friends in San Luis Obispo who had challenged us to start writing a love letter every day.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-07-0208 minLove, Words & PoetryDeeper LayersThis episode opens with a poem and reflection on Emily Dickinson. In our love letters, we risk sharing vulnerable feelings, and learn more about listening with our hearts. The closing poem ponders what might happen in Act 6 of Hamlet.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-06-1906 minLove, Words & PoetryPoetic IdyllsThe poems that bookend this episode describe idylls set in Texas and Massachusetts and frame our first love letters since we were married.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-05-2910 minLove, Words & PoetryIn the BeginningThe podcast is pivoting to a more chronological format, beginning with our first reflections on our marriage, a love poem in French I wrote for Wes in college, a contemplation of Mother's Day, and the quest to elude time as counted out by clocks.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-05-1311 minLove, Words & PoetryFrom Struggles to SynchronicityThe podcast opens with three poems set in fall and winter, ponders the fate of Orpheus and Eurydice, shares love letters delving into difficult feelings which open the door into greater intimacy, and ends with a serendipitous leap (courtesy of a bold flock of geese) into synchronicity.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-04-1513 minLove, Words & PoetryFlying ChangesThis episode is bookended by poems about riding, with a foray into flying changes on horseback, and love letters that reveal some of our strengths and weaknesses as individuals and as a couple.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-03-2609 minLove, Words & PoetryWelcome to Love, Words & PoetryIntroducing a new podcast celebrating love, words, and poetry and the connections among them.Victoria Mary Fach, a published poet, reads her poem "Distancing," and follows with a love letter from her husband and one she wrote to him, illustrating some of the ways they worked to make their marriage grow and become more intimate. She reveals her word for 2023, and ends with a poem somewhat in praise of "Euless, Texas."May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-03-1310 minLove, Words & PoetryGeometricks, Bluebonnets, and March RenaissanceBookend poems of spring in Texas and New Jersey (with a brief side trip to the Greek gods' stomping grounds), light on Texas bluebonnets, and love letters revealing that our work in marriage enrichment for other couples always enlightened us.May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-03-1210 minLove, Words & PoetryWelcome to Love, Words & PoetryVictoria Mary Fach, a published poet, reads her poem "Distancing," and follows with a love letter from her husband and one she wrote to him, illustrating some of the ways they worked to make their marriage grow and become more intimate. She reveals her word for 2023, and ends with a poem somewhat in praise of "Euless, Texas."May words add more love and poetry to your days!2023-02-2410 min