On Why the Quiltmaker Became a Dragon

"Think, if you will, of a woman in a small Alaskan town who agrees to help quilt the stories of the town's past. There are stories that are pleasant and some that are frightening but need to be told. There are stories filled with power. As the woman quilts something happens to her vision. Things in her mind's eye become more real, more pressing, more demanding than the 'real' things around her. She soars in what could be imagination; reality takes on new color and shape. Of course, it's only a poem. Isn't it?"-- from the Introduction.