Poetry is an inseparable companion of the human spirit from early childhood though the end of our lives. For each one of us, from morning's first light through the darkness of night, every day is a poetic event, a series of sensory impressions recording the epic narrative of our human pilgrimage on earth. Thus we are all poets, though only some among us lay claim to the title by evoking the memory of these impressions with artful patterns of words, sounds, and rhythms.

Here, in the poetic diversion of Bob's Byway, we'll step along the well-traveled ways as well as the unbeaten paths of poetic experience. While strolling leisurely around this wondrous world of fanciful imagination, we'll smell the flowers, hear the music, and we'll dally here and there to savor the pervasive piquancy of poetic awareness.

Neither daunted by snow, nor deterred by rain, we'll explore both the ridiculous and the sublime. We'll experience emotions ranging from the lofty pinnacles of joy to the plummets of sorrow -- our hearts will sing in the warm glow of romance and weep amid the frigid flames of war.

We'll visit the east and go to the west. In every corner of the globe, from where the melodic trill of a thrush is heard to places where no birds sing at all, we'll renew our acquaintance with the land, with its seas and skies and fields and hills.

If we need relief along the way, we can camp under a Tumtum tree, or rest for a spell near a field of daffodils, but we'll be learning all the while -- accumulating a store of memories, fulfilling dreams, absorbing the wisdom of the ancients -- to approach at last a better understanding of who we really are.

Finally, if you're game, we might risk a critical glance at some of Bob's poems, but we'd better hurry because it's time to move on, time to close this bit of whimsical indulgence and take our leave. So let's shift to the engagement of more serious matters now, to become well-read in the mysteries, the craft and the haunting harmonies of poetry. Let's spring ahead to the inner chambers of Bob's Byway, starting with the Glossary of Poetic Terms.