Introduction by Ted Kooser: Lois Parker Edstrom, a retired nurse, lives on Whidbey Island, off the coast of Washington, and her 2016 book Night Beyond Black, from MoonPath Press, has many accessible and moving poems. Here's just one example.

She said she had always wanted to do it;

throw away dirty dishes rather than wash them

and she did, after breakfast, toss the blue, green,

orange, and yellow Fiestaware into the trash.

Transferring from New York to Germany

with her husband and children,

the movers coming that day, she chucked the dishes

in among the banana peels, egg shells, coffee grounds,

bits of bacon, paper towels and called it good.

What she could not know is that a young mother

in that very town received a much needed set

of tableware when her husband returned

home from work that evening. Bright dishes

that showed up chipped and grubby

like old friends with egg on their faces.