A former journalist and copywriter, Gail Rooke has practiced as an elder law attorney for 23 years. In her work with the elderly and their families, she assists her clients as they navigate issues of loss, new roles and change, re-alignment of assets, and planning for end of life. She is the author of a blog on poetry, writing, reading, and legal matters, entitled Comma. Meditations By The Sea is her first chapbook of poems. In her poetry, Gail Rooke finds comfort in the dreamscapes which abound in nature, a sanctuary of sorts. Throughout, there is a reverence for the natural world. Images rise up and flourish, en plein air, painted by a voice that is personal -- sometimes a participant, sometimes an onlooker. The poems in Meditations By The Sea provide the echoes of the push and pull of the ocean, the two sides of meditation -- joy and grief -- and the reminder that there is a temporary synthesis humans must find, over and over.