I Come to Morning: Selected Poems of Gale Gesner (2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist)

In these pages, Gale transforms life and nature with indelible imagery: "The pines are holding his wings, / which flap like dark curtains in wind, / splitting raindrops in integral rhythms. / Where are the wings of the crow, / which peel the night from the moon, / spinning the sun into black?" Punctuated by occasional sharp outcries at injustice, her words embody a fierce courage and ever-deepening inner strength: "There is morning here / between the end and the beginning / shining like a shell in spangled sand." Complete within themselves, yet brimming with promise, Gale's poems take us with her on a journey to the morning she loved, a place of hope, where "even Siberian snows / Know springs."

The selections in this volume were chosen by Gale's mother, the late Evelyn Gesner. Forewords are by acclaimed authors Harvena Richter and Robert Peel. Jacket photos of Gale are by Bill Grant, former photographer for the Christian Science Monitor. At the request of Evelyn Gesner, the book was edited by her friend Priscilla Wright Pratt, who has since passed on. It was Priscilla's wish that her daughter, Catherine, would publish I Come to Morning.