FOREWORD

I have always loved the sound of a flute being played. Perhaps the most striking is the sound of the flute-player’s breath puckering at the trailing edge of most every note. The music breathes. It is poetry. I fell in love with it, – the sound of the flute – and the flute-player.

This collection was written during my undergraduate studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, after having returned from a personal trip to Buffalo, NY. Writing enables me to shine light upon my own life having laced someone else’s shoes around my feet and taken a nice long walk in them. Walks were most often on cold, snowy nights when the snow sparkled under the streetlights along streets like Lake Shore Drive, and the soothing hum of the city kept me company. Such weather always entices one to look inward. Perhaps I write simply because I have always loved snow.

The Flute is the second collection of poems I managed to compile. It is a mix of reflections based on introspections and sincere empathy of stories that flew around and through me in those days. As such, this book is filled with awkwardness, contemplation, warnings of the human condition, and a vacuum of sadness. Sadness itself is of no substance. It is that which tears out our hearts only to provide us with the means of truly appreciating our lives.

Tim LaFave Jr

March 2000