Preface to A Passing of Clouds copyright 1976 by Tracy Marks I have been impregnated with a sperm of creativity. My poetry matures like a child within my womb, undetected for weeks, then swelling me up with its formless movement until it emerges in rush of blood and perspiration. I did not realize in a time of internal  pressure that I was harboring a "child", which like all children, would want to be warmed, fed, delivered and tenderly nursed. I did not realize while I supported abortion that I nearly aborted my own fetus of creativity because I was unwilling to trust that inner tension could be transformed into joyous self-expression. I did not realize that it was time for me to be my own midwife, my own doctor, nurse and mother, to nurture the life within myself, the offspring of a truly transcendent lovemaking. This book is my child. Preface Two to A Passing of Clouds second volume copyright 1987 by Tracy Marks You were with another woman tonight, and rather than drink or eat or sleep to excess or stare at blurred pages to hide from the cutting pain, I felt it in my chest, felt the aching spread until it engulfed me, and allowed myself to sob until the sharpness left and there was only a dull familiar emptiness. Then I asked,  "What can I do to for myself that will fill me as deeply as you fill me, that will make me feel as significant as I feel when you are with me?" And deep within my gut I heard awaken another longing besides the longing for you – the longing to make my private world public, to collect fragments from my journal and proclaim myself to the world.

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