"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks." Plutarch Once... A Journey Through Life is a poem. I have been known to describe it as "a long poem with the accompanying art." But that's not quite true. More accurately, it's a collection of artwork that is accompanied by a long poem. The poem and all of the images are my original works. The story is based on a journey through a surreal world of emotions. It is a lifetime of emotions in words and pictures from my imagination to yours. They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I strongly agree, though if you ask different people they all see different things. Most of my art is nature oriented, and a lot of it has a surreal feeling. This book has been my labor of love for many years, and If you were to ask me, "Which came first - the artwork or the poem?" I would have to say that it all came together in a strange and scattered way. But, it did finally come together, and I'm very proud to state that "This is my first book."