POETRY BORN FROM THE JOURNEY: ALEXANDER VALLEY RANCHER TOUTS HIS FOURTH BOOK OF VERSE, WHERE HE FOUND HIS TRUE CALLING

In Geyserville, Jim Miller is known as a father, grandfather, landowner and grape farmer. At 77, he is also a published poet.

His fourth book, "Going Off the Pavement," was published in June, the culmination of 30 years' work. It includes 118 poems and 43 photos he describes as his search for "the center line" of his life.

Miller was born and raised in Pasadena with a "golden spoon in my mouth," but still endured an excruciating childhood. While he was studying landscape design, his parents divorced, then both committed suicide.

He spent part of his inheritance to buy a house in Berkeley and, after an 18-month international odyssey, he toured Sonoma County properties until he found the Garden Creek Ranch in the Alexander Valley, which "snapped my garters," Miller said.

He bought it in June 1963, was married there to Berit Maud Inger Bertilson and has been there ever since, raising sheep, cattle and then grapes, fruit and vegetables.

For almost as long, Miller has been writing poems and, after studying with Ansel Adams in Yosemite, taking photographs.

Berit died in 2010 from a heart attack many years after they were divorced. Their son, Justin, and his wife, Karin, now run the ranch and the winery, leaving Miller time for art.

"I have not stopped using my brain and still love thinking," he said. "I am always learning to see things. There is beauty in everything."

What were your parents like?

Both were from old-money backgrounds. My father was head of a glass company/factory. After the war, he bought the old Edward Rust nursery in Pasadena and it became a thriving business. My mother was a stay-at-home mom.

Since I was small I had wanted to be an architect, but was told I was not good enough in math, so I studied landscape design. About this time, my parents were dying, leaving me with a whirlwind, unsettled state of mind.

What did you want for yourself?

A few years after my father died, I got the idea of traveling. As I was leaving, a close classmate of mine said to me, "Jim, I hope you will see your mountain from its plain."

That has stuck with me always. It was 1962 on a train in Sendai that I saw a reflection of a volcano in a large rice paddy, and the idea of what to do with my life became very clear.

The Geyserville property became my source of therapy for many years. The area is beautiful, and I have always pursued beauty in my life

How did you meet your wife?

In the Buena Vista Caf?? in San Francisco around 1968. We picked up an intense relationship that wound up with us traveling to Crete. She loved the country where I lived, and so was happy to move up from Stanford, where she was running the pulmonary physiology lab.

What kind of life did you have here?

We loved dancing, good dinners and entertaining. She was a great cook. Some of the best times were when we'd join neighbors and take our horses on rides in the hills behind us, finishing often at a neighbor's (house) for a brunch.

What helped direct your financial future?

Having a long heritage with relatives that were in banking. I learned to manage money very early, had a checking account at 12 years of age. I pursued venture capital opportunities and for many years was the secretary-treasurer of Oxford Laboratories.

How did you begin writing?

I have always enjoyed writing, particularly letters to friends all over the world. A summer school course at Berkeley in Japanese Literature open my eyes to the power of poetry. A seed was planted.

I am writing more books; one will be to my grandmother who died in the middle of writing me a letter in 1964.

How well have all your books been received?

They have not made the New York Times review, yet, but maybe one day. Several of my poems have won prizes, mainly from the Ina Coolbirth Circle, one of the oldest poetry groups in the United States.

What fuels your desire to keep writing?

Words are always coming to me. The more I let go and allow feelings to rise, the more segments of poems that appear. Getting them onto paper is the art!

What is your goal with this book?

Reveal my personal travels into the deep parts of my self as a guide for other men who are searching and may need to read a poem or two to help them in their pathway. Revealing my deepest inner explorations may be valuable tools for others. Revealing myself is healing medicine.

And the title?

"Going Off the Pavement" represents an insight I had while driving the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. I noted that the center line of the curved road suddenly went all wiggly. At first it was humorous, but then I realized that like that painted center line, I too had lost the center line of my life and would have to find it if I was ever going to be happy.

Images can be powerful stimulants for poems.