World War II: A chance meeting, like ships passing in the night, between a Navy Pre-Flight cadet from New York and a California college sophomore. who begin a wartime correspondence. Five years later, still strangers, they marry. No fairytale ending here, these lyrical poems sweep the reader into sometimes calm, sometimes choppy waters of a union that outlasted by 61 years the prediction of an upstate Irish Catholic priest: "This marriage will never last " Pat Shannon Leonard's poetry, in its various forms from free verse to narrative to sonnets, speaks of romance, tragedy, humor and, above all, of abiding love. Love Poems to Bill is a love story and a tribute to "the greatest generation."