Author:  Michele Heeney
ISBN: 978-0-578-02218-5
Publisher:  Todd Black Books

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Keep the Change is Michele Heeney’s second book of poetry.  Her first book was a collection of poems and color photographs.  This book is mostly poems with a few of her black and white photos.

Michele has revised some of the older poems which appeared in her first book and she has written about twenty-five new poems for this book.

The first book of poems was written in many different areas of the world but Keep the Change’s new poems were all written in New Mexico where she currently resides.

This book represents a lifetime of poetry.  The poems are of simple pleasures of life, a touch of the harsh realities that come with living and growing and a dose of loneliness that we all feel at one time or another in our lives. 

Since I have spent some years in New Mexico, I was able to relate to this book.  I could feel the pull that comes from living in the state.  The poems are truly about the life that is lived there.  This book reveals the simple, yet complex lifestyle in New Mexico.

Since aging is part of our lives and we sometimes think about our own mortality as friends pass, the following poem was appropriate for where my thoughts were on the day I read the book.  See if you can relate.

Two Thieves

Age steals youth away,

  Death steals more.

Age dusts the windows,

  Death shuts the door.

 
 Age takes beauty,

Death, hope of spring.

  Age takes laughter,

Death - everything.

 
Age steals thoughts away

  And times once known

    Age takes memories,

    Death leaves its own.

 
Age knows good times

  Death knows none.

    Age takes many,

Death – everyone.

 
The poem reminds us that no one gets out of this life alive and we all end in the same place.  Although aging might not be beautiful to our eyes and continually pulls at our heart strings, it is just as much a part of life as is death.

Michele has lived in Marin and Monterey counties of California, and also Maui, Hawaii. Michele now lives and writes in New Mexico. Her house is on the Cochiti Reservation, just south of Santa Fe, in the little Town of Cochiti Lake.

Besides writing poetry, Michele has managed a challenging career in the medical world and travels extensively, in and out of the United States.  I look forward to reading her next book of poetry.

Click Here To Purchase Keep The Change