Poems spanning four decades from Portland, Oregon poet and writer, David Porter. David began writing verse in high school, published his first poem "Hitchhiking In Winter" in the late 60s. He continued to write through years of raising four children and working on community projects as a way to earn a living. The poem "Thoughts While Crossing The Steel Bridge" was a runner-up in Oregon's Ben Hur Lampman poetry contest in the 1980s. With that and few other exceptions, this is his first offering from that body of work.

An accessible and interesting survey of the rise of the state of Alabama from frontier society to the Civil War.

Emergence -- Endurance -- Dispossession -- Settlers -- Miners -- Farmers -- Conservationists -- Feds -- Common ground -- Restoring the valley primeval -- The tragedy of the willows -- Conclusion : Seeing the forest and the trees