Sacrifice

From the sonnet, ''Tournesols'' to ''Boutique Hotel,'' any joy and relief in this collection of poems are short-lived, reflecting their creator''s real-life experiences and those of others she knows well. We are born, we bloom for a while, if lucky, but like the wondrous evening primrose, emblem of her childhood on the sand dunes near Porthcawl, soon wrinkle and close. And all along the way lies hidden danger. From whoever is lying in wait for us to trip and fall, to the very air we breathe. Whoever is pressing the right buttons to create the kind of world only seen in futuristic films. Beneath and beyond the temporal, visible beauty of this planet and those we love, lurk our worst imaginings, while easily peddled words of comfort and hope soon weaken and disintegrate. And then there''s the never-ending guilt. William Butler Yeats was right.

''Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?''