Jacqueline Stinson Mesa, Arizona

A retired educator, Jackie's poetry writing has flowered amid her community and church services. Her poetry has been used in civic and Church newsletters, studies, programs, memorial services and as church music lyrics. Jackie's poems have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and in The National Library of Poetry anthologies, in the U.S. Pentagon's art gallery, on the NYC Radio's Poetry Today, and she's penned a poem for the Care Centers of America. She counts among her blessings her 2 children, 3 grandchildren, and being married 50 years to her childhood friend and sweetheart, Hal, who has taken part in her poetry readings. Her other loves include singing and reading.

Count Your Blessings Count your blessings even your pain.. flowers need both sunshine and rain. Bless your lost dreams then let them go for each heartache helps us to grow. Bless your loved ones especially those you hold dear in memory. Count your blessings and see anew God's bounteous gifts all around you!

Someone's Memory O, Lord help us to remember that we will become someone else's memory! Let our every touch be a seeing gift fulfilling a need and bringing a lift Let love move inside every deed we do and become a sweet sacrifice for you... so lovely it stirs someone's memory to let pain rise in joy, triumphantly!

Trail of Tears On the pathways of love inside the heart dreams can die out and tear it all apart. Our aborted dreams come from fallouts of broken promises. undervalued love. In the heart's garden of Gethsemane we shed our tears and cope with agony... Broken dreams remain on the trail of tears unless Hope lifts us and transforms our fears-- The trail of tears is taken to release the heart of its pains to find inner peace.

All poems Copyright © 1997 Jacqueline Stinson. All rights reserved.