I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. I began writing devotional material in 1981 as a part of my ministry and my own spiritual practice. As my writing habits expanded in those years, I began to notice that some of the stuff I wrote came with a cadence, a sense of sound that moved differently than my usual prose, inviting me to try my hand at poetry. Since 1982, I have practiced that style. Originally, I did free verse but, as I worked with the poems and grew in my sense of line as the basic element of the poem, I found I more and more did my work in metrical styles, with or without end-rhyme. By 1987, metrical verse dominated my styles. For a while, I wrote a goodly number of sonnets but have found that has ebbed over the years. I continue to write, based largely on what I experience as I go about living life - in people and scenery, holidays and history, events and stories. I write pastoral materials, hymn texts, prayers, even a series to a Welsh hymn meter that was said to have escaped use in English settings. This all takes place as I live quietly now in retirement with my wife of 57 years, two dogs and five cats.