As sailboat captain, rower, flyfisher, gardener, and Quaker naturalist, SUSAN SCHMIDT writes poems about moving from dark into light as she plays in boats and walks long trails. She remembers bright parrots, big trout, gales at sea, glaciers, peach pie, old loves, Celtic ancestry, Civil War battlefields, and learning to navigate. Salt Runs in My Blood relates the poet’s personal journey—mostly by boat: her inner flights and actual escape; as she loves her family and natural neighbors. Observing birds, she learns her own survival strategies. She travels to New Zealand, Alaska, the West Indies, but stays South where she can name the trees and swim year round. Vulnerable on land, she is more confident on the water.