Margaret Rose Patterson was born and raised in rural upstate New York, along the Black River in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Her early years growing up on a dairy farm outside of Greig, NY (population then about 350) shaped both her love of nature and her strong Christian faith. She completed her B.A. at Union College in Schenectady, NY in 1972 before migrating south to the west coast of Florida. She met her husband, Richard Green, while she was working as a respiratory therapist and he, as a nurse, in the Sarasota area. They married in 1976. She completed her M.A. degree in education at the University of South Florida in 1986 and began teaching high school Science. Widowed after 34 years of marriage, Meg still lives in southwest Florida near her two beloved daughters, Heather and Laurel, and continues teaching in the Sarasota County School System. She has set several of the poems found in this volume to music for performance by local church choirs and by the Venice, FL choral group, Exsultate!, of which she is a proud founding member.