Poet: A writer and photographer, Carole MacRury lives in Point Roberts, where she has heard whales breathing off the jetty and where eagle sightings are up close and personal.

Poetry then: "I've always been an avid reader, and in my younger years, wrote short stories and poems as an outlet. My real work and study of poetry truly began around 1995, when I was going through the caretaking of my ailing mother. ... It was five years of a very slow and painful decline, until her death in 2000. Expressing myself through poetry helped me cope."

Poetry now: MacRury often writes haiku and tank poems, classical Japanese genres. Her first book, "In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides" is available at Village Books. Additional poems can be found in the anthology "Poets Gone Wild;" at such online journals as Red River Review, The Green Tricycle, and Stirring, and in an upcoming collection, "the Little Book of Yotsumonos."

AN INTIMATE LOOK AT A SLUG

Poor slug -

like you, we secrete

but prefer to keep our moistness

hidden from the public eye;

we perspire,

slow our flow with astringents,

deodorize; stay dry.

A repugnant moist muscle,

we watch your naked gloss

pull like molasses

across the paths we walk;

your horns palpate

and you reach - retract - reach

towards a glutinous future.

With a moue of disgust,

we watch your smear

through the dust of the world,

an unshelled mollusk,

unable to hide; vulnerable

to the cling of debris,

to dryness.

Poor slug

without a shell;

you not only repel,

you remind us.