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I Would Say That There Exists A Thousand Unbreakable Links Between Each Of Us And Everything Else, And That Our Dignity And Our Chances Are One. The Farthest Star And The Mud At Our Feet Are A Family; And There Is No Decency Or Sense In Honoring One Thing, Or A Few Things, And Then Closing The List. The Pine Tree, The Leopard, The Platte River, And Ourselves-we Are At Risk Together, Or We Are On Our Way To A Sustainable World Together, We Are Each Other's Destiny.

-Mary Oliver

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I Would Say That

Mary Oliver

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I Would Say That There Exists A Thousand Unbreakable Links Between Each Of Us And Everything Else, And That Our Dignity And Our Chances Are One. The Farthest Star And The Mud At Our Feet Are A Family; And There Is No Decency Or Sense In Honoring One Thing, Or A Few Things, And Then Closing The List. The Pine Tree, The Leopard, The Platte River, And Ourselves-we Are At Risk Together, Or We Are On Our Way To A Sustainable World Together, We Are Each Other's Destiny.

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At Blackwater Pond The Tossed Waters Have Settled After A Night Of Rain. I Dip My Cupped Hands. I Drink A Long Time. It Tastes Like Stone, Leaves, Fire. It Falls Cold Into My Body, Waking The Bones. I Hear Them Deep Inside Me, Whispering Oh What Is That Beautiful Thing That Just Happened?

All Night My Heart Makes Its Way However It Can Over The Rough Ground Of Uncertainties, But Only Until Night Meets And Then Is Overwhelmed By Morning, The Light Deepening, The Wind Easing And Just Waiting, As I Too Wait (and When Have I Ever Been Disappointed?) For Redbird To Sing

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

And Over One More Set Of Hills, Along The Sea, The Last Roses Have Opened Their Factories Of Sweetness And Are Giving It Back To The World. If I Had Another Life I Would Want To Spend It All On Some Unstinting Happiness.

A Dog Comes To You And Lives With You In Your Own House, But You Do Not Therefore Own Her, As You Do Not Own The Rain, Or The Trees, Or The Laws Which Pertain To Them ... A Dog Can Never Tell You What She Knows From The Smells Of The World, But You Know, Watching Her, That You Know Almost Nothing. . .

We All Have A Hungry Heart, And One Of The Things We Hunger For Is Happiness.

Snow Was Falling, So Much Like Stars Filling The Dak Trees That One Could Easily Imagine Its Reason For Being Was Nothing More The Prettiness.

I Had A Dog Who Loved Flowers. Briskly She Went Through The Fields, Yet Paused For The Honeysuckle Or The Rose, Her Dark Head And Her Wet Nose Touching The Face Of Every One With Its Petals Of Silk With Its Fragrance Rising Into The Air Where The Bees, Their Bodies Heavy With Pollen Hovered - And Easily She Adored Every Blossom Not In The Serious Careful Way That We Choose This Blossom Or That Blossom The Way We Praise Or Don't Praise - The Way We Love Or Don't Love - But The Way We Long To Be - That Happy In The Heaven Of Earth - That Wild, That Loving.

Today I Am Altogether Without Ambition. Where Did I Get Such Wisdom?

And Who Will Care, Who Will Chide You If You Wander Away From Wherever You Are, To Look For Your Soul?

There Are A Hundred Paths Through The World That Are Easier Than Loving. But Who Wants Easier?

You Must Not Ever Stop Being Whimsical.

I Read The Way A Person Might Swim, To Save His Or Her Life. I Wrote That Way Too.

The End Of Life Has Its Own Nature, Also Worth Our Attention.

I Try To Be Good But Sometimes A Person Just Has To Break Out And Act Like The Wild And Springy Thing One Used To Be. It's Impossible Not To Remember Wild An Want It Back.

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

And That Is Just The Point... How The World, Moist And Beautiful, Calls To Each Of Us To Make A New And Serious Response. That's The Big Question, The One The World Throws At You Every Morning. "here You Are, Alive. Would You Like To Make A Comment?

I Have Trouble With Some Books Because I'm So Much In Agreement With Them I'd Rather Just Sit In The Grass Myself.

And It Can Keep You As Busy As Anything Else, And Happier.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

What Misery To Be Afraid Of Death. What Wretchedness, To Believe Only In What Can Be Proven.

Afraid Of Death

Sunrise What Is The Name Of The Deep Breath I Would Take Over And Over For All Of Us? Call It Whatever You Want, It Is Happiness, It Is Another One Of The Ways To Enter Fire.

A Dog Can Never Tell You What She Knows From The Smells Of The World, But You Know, Watching Her, That You Know Almost Nothing.

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, She Took Me Back So Tenderly, Arranging Her Dark Skirts, Her Pockets Full Of Lichens And Seeds. I Slept As Never Before, A Stone On The River Bed, Nothing Between Me And The White Fire Of The Stars.

I Was Very Careful Never To Take An Interesting Job. If You Have An Interesting Job, You Get Interested In It.

I Know I Can Walk Through The World, Along The Shore Or Under The Trees, With My Mind Filled With Things Of Little Importance, In Full Self-attendance. A Condition I Can't Really Call Being Alive.

Rhythm Is One Of The Most Powerful Of Pleasures, And When We Feel A Pleasurable Rhythm We Hope It Will Continue. When It Does, It Grows Sweeter.

I Tell You This To Break Your Heart, By Which I Mean Only That It Break Open And Never Close Again To The Rest Of The World.

Drive Down Any Road, Take A Train Or An Airplane Across The World, Leave Your Old Life Behind, Die And Be Born Again~ Wherever You Arrive They'll Be There First, Glossy And Rowdy And Indistinguishable. The Deep Muscle Of The World.

When The Blackberries Hang Swollen In The Woods, In The Brambles Nobody Owns, I Spend All Day Among The High Branches, Reaching My Ripped Arms, Thinking Of Nothing, Cramming The Black Honey Of Summer Into My Mouth; All Day My Body Accepts What It Is. In The Dark Creeks That Run By There Is This Thick Paw Of My Life Darting Among The Black Bells, The Leaves; There Is This Happy Tongue.

It's Morning, And Again I Am That Lucky Person Who Is In It.

Around Me The Trees Stir In Their Leaves And Call Out, Stay Awhile.

A Mind That Is Lively And Inquiring, Compassionate, Curious, Angry, Full Of Music, Full Of Feeling, Is A Mind Full Of Possible Poetry.

I've Always Wanted To Write Poems And Nothing Else.

Whoever You Are, No Matter How Lonely, The World Offers Itself To Your Imagination.

Every Spring I Hear The Thrush Singing In The Glowing Woods He Is Only Passing Through. His Voice Is Deep, Then He Lifts It Until It Seems To Fall From The Sky. I Am Thrilled. I Am Grateful. Then, By The End Of Morning, He's Gone, Nothing But Silence Out Of The Tree Where He Rested For A Night. And This I Find Acceptable. Not Enough Is A Poor Life. But Too Much Is, Well, Too Much. Imagine Verdi Or Mahler Every Day, All Day. It Would Exhaust Anyone.

Joy Is Not Made To Be A Crumb. (don't Hesitate)

Life Is Much The Same When It's Going Well-- Resonant And Unremarkable. But Who, Not Under Disaster's Seal, Can Understand What Life Is Like When It Begins To Crumble?

You Are Young. So You Know Everything. You Leap Into The Boat And Begin Rowing. But, Listen To Me. Without Fanfare, Without Embarrassment, Without Doubt,i Talk Directly To Your Soul. Listen To Me.

If I've Done My Work Well, I Vanish Completely From The Scene. I Believe It Is Invasive Of The Work When You Know Too Much About The Writer.

Still, What I Want In My Life Is To Be Willing To Be Dazzled-to Cast Aside The Weight Of Facts And Maybe Even To Float A Little Above This Difficult World. I Want To Believe I Am Looking Into The White Fire Of A Great Mystery. I Want To Believe That The Imperfections Are Nothing-that The Light Is Everything-that It Is More Than The Sum Of Each Flawed Blossom Rising And Fading. And I Do.

If You Have Ever Gone Into The Woods With Me, I Must Love You Very Much.

A Lifetime Isn't Long Enough For The Beauty Of This World And The Responsibilities Of Your Life.

Each Body Is A Lion Of Courage, Something Precious Of The Earth.

It's Not A Competition, It's A Doorway.

Special Education

Can One Be Passionate About The Just, The Ideal, The Sublime, And The Holy, And Yet Commit No Labor In Its Cause? I Don't Think So. All Summations Have A Beginning, All Effect Has A Story, All Kindness Beings With The Sown Seed. Thought Buds Toward Radiance. The Gospel Of Light Is The Crossroads Of - Indolence, Or Action. Be Ignited Or Be Gone.

One Thing I Do Know Is That Poetry, To Be Understood, Must Be Clear.

Love Yourself. Then Forget It. Then, Love The World.

Special Education

My Work Is The World. Here The Sunflowers, There The Hummingbird - Equal Seekers Of Sweetness. Here The Quickening Yeast; There The Blue Plums.

The Sea Can Do Craziness, It Can Do Smooth, It Can Lie Down Like Silk Breathing Or Toss Havoc Shoreward; It Can Give Gifts Or Withhold All; It Can Rise, Ebb, Froth Like An Incoming Frenzy Of Fountains, Or It Can Sweet-talk Entirely. As I Can Too, And So, No Doubt, Can You, And You.

I Want To Write Something So Simply About Love Or About Pain That Even As You Are Reading You Feel It And As You Read You Keep Feeling It And Though It Be My Story It Will Be Common, Though It Be Singular It Will Be Known To You So That By The End You Will Think— No, You Will Realize— That It Was All The While Yourself Arranging The Words, That It Was All The Time Words That You Yourself, Out Of Your Heart Had Been Saying.

Look, Hasn't My Body Already Felt Like The Body Of A Flower?

Listen--are You Breathing Just A Little, And Calling It A Life?

I Have A Notion That If You Are Going To Be Spiritually Curious, You Better Not Get Cluttered Up With Too Many Material Things.

Follow Your Dreams

All Culture Developed As Some Wild, Raw Creature Strived To Live Better And Longer.

All Eternity Is In The Moment.

It Is What I Was Born For - To Look, To Listen, To Lose Myself Inside This Soft World - To Instruct Myself Over And Over.

A Poet's Interest In Craft Never Fades, Of Course.

Ordinarily, I Go To The Woods Alone, With Not A Single Friend, For They Are All Smilers And Talkers And Therefore Unsuitable. I Don't Really Want To Be Witnessed Talking To The Catbirds Or Hugging The Old Black Oak Tree. I Have My Way Of Praying, As You No Doubt Have Yours. Besides, When I Am Alone I Can Become Invisible.

You May Not Agree, You May Not Care, But If You Are Holding This Book You Should Know That Of All The Sights I Love In This World — And There Are Plenty — Very Near The Top Of The List Is This One: Dogs Without Leashes.

Of Course! The Path To Heaven Doesn't Lie Down In Flat Miles. It's In The Imagination With Which You Perceive This World, And The Gestures With Which You Honor It.

Children Play Earnestly As If It Were Work. But People Grow Up, And They Work With A Sorrow Upon Them. It's Duty.

Every Morning I Walk Like This Around The Pond, Thinking: If The Doors Of My Heart Ever Close, I Am As Good As Dead.

There Is Only One Question: / How To Love This World.

You Do Not Have To Be Good. You Do Not Have To Walk On Your Knees For A Hundred Miles Through The Desert, Repenting. You Only Have To Let The Soft Animal Of Your Body Love What It Loves.

And There You Are On The Shore, Fitful And Thoughtful, Trying To Attach Them To An Idea — Some News Of Your Own Life. But The Lilies Are Slippery And Wild—they Are Devoid Of Meaning, They Are Simply Doing, From The Deepest Spurs Of Their Being, What They Are Impelled To Do Every Summer. And So, Dear Sorrow, Are You.

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

I Held My Breath As We Do Sometimes To Stop Time When Something Wonderful Has Touched Us.

I Consider Myself Kind Of A Reporter - One Who Uses Words That Are More Like Music And That Have A Choreography. I Never Think Of Myself As A Poet; I Just Get Up And Write.

There Is A Notion That Creative People Are Absent-minded, Reckless, Heedless Of Social Customs And Obligations. It Is, Hopefully, True For They Are In Another World Altogether.

Let Me Keep My Distance, Always, From Those Who Think They Have The Answers. Let Me Keep Company Always With Those Who Say “look!” And Laugh In Astonishment, And Bow Their Heads. (from “mysteries, Yes”)

The Three Ingredients Of Poetry: The Mystery Of The Universe, Spiritual Curiosity, The Energy Of Language.

Do You Love This World? Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life? Do You Adore The Green Grass, With Its Terror Beneath? Do You Also Hurry, Half-dressed And Barefoot, Into The Garden, And Softly, And Exclaiming Of Their Dearness, Fill Your Arms With The White And Pink Flowers, With Their Honeyed Heaviness, Their Lush Trembling, Their Eagerness To Be Wild And Perfect For A Moment, Before They Are Nothing, Forever?

The Dream Of My Life Is To Lie Down By A Slow River And Stare At The Light In The Trees - To Learn Something By Being Nothing

If You Suddenly And Unexpectedly Feel Joy, Don't Hesitate. Give In To It. There Are Plenty Of Lives And Whole Towns Destroyed Or About To Be. We Are Not Wise, And Not Very Often Kind. And Much Can Never Be Redeemed. Still Life Has Some Possibility Left. Perhaps This Is Its Way Of Fighting Back, That Sometimes Something Happened Better Than All The Riches Or Power In The World. It Could Be Anything, But Very Likely You Notice It In The Instant When Love Begins. Anyway, That's Often The Case. Anyway, Whatever It Is, Don't Be Afraid Of Its Plenty. Joy Is Not Made To Be A Crumb.

Sometimes I Spend All Day Trying To Count The Leaves On A Single Tree... Of Course I Have To Give Up, But By Then I'm Half Crazy With The Wonder Of It--the Abundance Of The Leaves, The Quietness Of The Branches, The Hopelessness Of My Effort. And I Am In That Delicious And Important Place, Roaring With Laughter, Full Of Earth-praise.

Come With Me Into The Woods Where Spring Is Advancing, As It Does, No Matter What, Not Being Singular Or Particular, But One Of The Forever Gifts, And Certainly Visible.

To Live In This World, You Must Be Able To Do Three Things: To Love What Is Mortal; To Hold It Against Your Bones Knowing Your Own Life Depends On It; And, When The Time Comes To Let It Go, To Let It Go.

...whoever You Are, Not Matter How Lonely The World Offers Itself To Your Imagination, Calls To You Like The Wild Geese, Harsh & Exciting - Over & Over Announcing Your Place In The Family Of Things.

When It's Over I Don't Want To Wonder If I Have Made Of My Life Something Particular, And Real.

Ten Times A Day Something Happens To Me Like This - Some Strengthening Throb Of Amazement - Some Good Sweet Empathic Ping And Swell. This Is The First, The Wildest And The Wisest Thing I Know: That The Soul Exists And Is Built Entirely Out Of Attentiveness.

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

Because Of The Dog’s Joyfulness, Our Own Is Increased. It Is No Small Gift.

But The Owls Themselves Are Not Hard To Find, Silent And On The Wing, With Their Ear Tufts Flat Against Their Heads As They Fly And Their Huge Wings Alternately Gliding And Flapping As They Maneuver Through The Trees. Athena's Owl Of Wisdom And Merlin's Companion, Archimedes, Were Screech Owls Surely, Not This Bird With The Glassy Gaze, Restless On The Bough, Nothing But Blood On Its Mind.

Love, Love, Love, Says Percy. And Hurry As Fast As You Can Along The Shining Beach, Or The Rubble, Or The Dust. Then, Go To Sleep. Give Up Your Body Heat, Your Beating Heart. Then, Trust.

The End Of Life Has Its Own Nature, Also Worth Our Attention. I Don't Say This Without Reckoning In The Sorrow, The Worry, The Many Diminishments. But Surely It Is Then That A Person's Character Shines Or Glooms.

In This Universe We Are Given Two Gifts: The Ability To Love And The Ability To Question. Which Are, At The Same Time, The Fires That Warm Us And The Fires That Scorch Us.

Ability To Love

Oh, Yesterday, That One, We All Cry Out. Oh, That One! How Rich And Possible Everything Was! How Ripe, Ready, Lavish, And Filled With Excitement--how Hopeful We Were On Those Summer Days, Under The Clean, White Racing Clouds. Oh, Yesterday!

You Want To Cry Aloud For Your Mistakes. But To Tell The Truth The World Doesn't Need Any More Of That Sound.

What I Have Done Is Learn To Love And Learn To Be Loved. That Didn't Come Easy.

Things Take The Time They Take. Don't Worry. How Many Roads Did St. Augustine Follow Before He Became St. Augustine?

...there Was A New Voice Which You Slowly Recognized As Your Own, That Kept You Company As You Strode Deeper And Deeper Into The World, Determined To Do The Only Thing You Could Do -- Determined To Save The Only Life You Could Save.

A Dog Is Adorable And Noble, A Dog Is A True And Loving Friend. A Dog Is Also A Hedonist.

What Can We Do But Keep On Breathing In And Out, Modest And Willing, And In Our Places?

To Find A New Word That Is Accurate And Different, You Have To Be Alert For It.

You, Too, Can Be Carved Anew By The Details Of Your Devotion.

... The Natural World Is The Old River That Runs Through Everything, And I Think Poets Will Forever Fish Along Its Shores.

I Very Much Wished Not To Be Noticed, And To Be Left Alone, And I Sort Of Succeeded.

The World Is: Fun, And Familiar, And Healthful, And Unbelievably Refreshing, And Lovely. And It Is The Theater Of The Spiritual; It Is The Multiform Utterly Obedient To A Mystery.

I Do Not Live Happily Or Comfortably With The Cleverness Of Our Times. The Talk Is All About Computers, The News Is All About Bombs And Blood. This Morning, In The Fresh Field, I Came Upon A Hidden Nest. It Held Four Warm, Speckled Eggs. I Touched Them. Then Went Away Softly, Having Felt Something More Wonderful Than All The Electricity Of New York City.

It Is The Nature Of Stone To Be Satisfied. It Is The Nature Of Water To Want To Be Somewhere Else.

It Was Not A Choice Of Writing Or Not Writing. It Was A Choice Of Loving My Life Or Not Loving My Life. To Keep Writing Was Always A First Priority.... I Worked Probably 25 Years By Myself.... Just Writing And Working, Not Trying To Publish Much. Not Giving Readings. A Longer Time Than People Really Are Willing To Commit Before They Want To Go Public.

The Poet Dreams Of The Classroom I Dreamed I Stood Up In Class And I Said Aloud: Teacher, Why Is Algebra Important? Sit Down, He Said. Then I Dreamed I Stood Up And I Said: Teacher, I’m Weary Of The Turkeys That We Have To Draw Every Fall. May I Draw A Fox Instead? Sit Down, He Said. Then I Dreamed I Stood Up Once More And Said: Teacher, My Heart Is Falling Asleep And It Wants To Wake Up. It Needs To Be Outside. Sit Down, He Said.

And To Tell The Truth I Don't Want To Let Go Of The Wrists Of Idleness, I Don't Want To Sell My Life For Money, I Don't Even Want To Come In Out Of The Rain.

I Feel The Terror Of Idleness, Like A Red Thirst. Death Isn't Just An Idea.

Tell Me About Despair, Yours, And I Will Tell You Mine

I Wanted To Hurry Into The Work Of My Life; I Wanted To Know, Whoever I Was, I Was Alive For A Little While.

Poetry Is One Of The Original Arts, And It Began, As Did All The Fine Arts, Within The Original Wilderness Of The Earth.

How Many Mysteries Have You Seen In Your Lifetime? How Many Nets Pulled Full Over The Boat's Side, Each Silver Body Ready Or Not Falling Into Submission? How Many Roses In Early Summer Uncurling Above The Pale Sands Then Falling Back In Unfathomable Willingness? And What Can You Say? Glory To The Rose And The Leaf, To The Seed, To The Silver Fish. Glory To Time And The Wild Fields, And To Joy. And To Grief's Shock And Torpor, Its Near Swoon.

I Want To Think Again Of Dangerous And Noble Things. I Want To Be Light And Frolicsome. I Want To Be Improbable And Beautiful And Afraid Of Nothing As Though I Had Wings.

After A Cruel Childhood, One Must Reinvent Oneself. Then Reimagine The World.

Today Again I Am Hardly Myself. It Happens Over And Over.

I Worked Privately, And Sometimes I Feel That Might Be Better For Poets Than The Kind Of Social Workshop Gathering. My School Was The Great Poets: I Read, And I Read, And I Read.

Poetry Is A River; Many Voices Travel In It; Poem After Poem Moves Along In The Exciting Crests And Falls Of The River Waves. None Is Timeless; Each Arrives In An Historical Context; Almost Everything, In The End, Passes. But The Desire To Make A Poem, And The World's Willingness To Receive It--indeed The World's Need Of It--these Never Pass.

I Was Hurrying Through My Own Soul . . . I Was Leaning Out . . . I Was Listening.

I Went To India And Was Quite Taken With It. There's A Feeling There That Things Are Holy First And Useful Second. And In America, We Have It Backwards.

When Will You Have A Little Pity For Every Soft Thing That Walks Through The World, Yourself Included.

And Now I Understand Something So Frightening &wonderful- How The Mind Clings To The Road It Knows, Rushing Through Crossroads, Sticking Like Lint To The Familiar.

But I Also Say This: That Light Is An Invitation To Happiness, And That Happiness, When It's Done Right, Is A Kind Of Holiness, Palpable And Redemptive.

I Believe Art Is Utterly Important. It Is One Of The Things That Could Save Us. We Don't Have To Rely Totally On Experience If We Can Do Things In Our Imagination.... It's The Only Way In Which You Can Live More Lives Than Your Own. You Can Escape Your Own Time, Your Own Sensibility, Your Own Narrowness Of Vision.

Though I Play At The Edges Of Knowing, Truly I Know Our Part Is Not Knowing, But Looking, And Touching, And Loving

Mornings At Blackwater" For Years, Every Morning, I Drank From Blackwater Pond. It Was Flavored With Oak Leaves And Also, No Doubt, The Feet Of Ducks. And Always It Assuaged Me From The Dry Bowl Of The Very Far Past. What I Want To Say Is That The Past Is The Past, And The Present Is What Your Life Is, And You Are Capable Of Choosing What That Will Be, Darling Citizen. So Come To The Pond, Or The River Of Your Imagination, Or The Harbor Of Your Longing, And Put Your Lips To The World. And Live Your Life.

The Face Of The Moose Is As Sad As The Face Of Jesus.

Maybe The World, Without Us, Is The Real Poem.

Still, What I Want In My Life Is To Be Willing To Be Dazzled---to Cast Aside The Weight Of Facts And Maybe Even To Float A Little Above This Difficult World.

Poetry Is A Life-cherishing Force.

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

And I Do Not Want Anymore To Be Useful, To Be Docile, To Lead / Children Out Of The Fields Into The Text / Of Civility, To Teach Them That They Are (they Are Not) Better Than The Grass.

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief. Also In Singing, Especially When Singing Is Not Necessarily Prescribed.

Truly, We Live With Mysteries Too Marvelous To Be Understood. How Grass Can Be Nourishing In The Mouths Of The Lambs. How Rivers And Stones Are Forever In Allegiance With Gravity While We Ourselves Dream Of Rising.

The God Of Dirt Came Up To Me Many Times And Said So Many Wise And Delectable Things, I Lay On The Grass Listening To His Dog Voice, Frog Voice; Now, He Said, And Now, And Never Once Mentioned Forever From, One Or Two Things

My Work Is Loving The World.

I Would Say That There Exists A Thousand Unbreakable Links Between Each Of Us And Everything Else, And That Our Dignity And Our Chances Are One. The Farthest Star And The Mud At Our Feet Are A Family; And There Is No Decency Or Sense In Honoring One Thing, Or A Few Things, And Then Closing The List. The Pine Tree, The Leopard, The Platte River, And Ourselves-we Are At Risk Together, Or We Are On Our Way To A Sustainable World Together, We Are Each Other's Destiny.

I Stood Willingly And Gladly In The Characters Of Everything - Other People, Trees, Clouds. And This Is What I Learned, That The World's Otherness Is Antidote To Confusion - That Standing Within This Otherness - The Beauty And The Mystery Of The World, Out In The Fields Or Deep Inside Books - Can Re-dignify The Worst-stung Heart.

Language Is, In Other Words, Not Necessary, But Voluntary. If It Were Necessary, It Would Have Stayed Simple; It Would Not Agitate Our Hearts With Ever-present Loveliness And Ever-cresting Ambiguity; It Would Not Dream, On Its Long White Bones, Of Turning Into Song.

When It's Over, I Want To Say: All My Life I Was A Bride Married To Amazement. I Was The Bridegroom, Taking The World Into My Arms.

The Sea Isn't A Place But A Fact, And A Mystery.

You Can Have The Other Words-chance, Luck, Coincidence, Serendipity. I'll Take Grace. I Don't Know What It Is Exactly, But I'll Take It.

And Now My Old Dog Is Dead, And Another I Had After Him, And My Parents Are Dead, And That First World, That Old House, Is Sold And Lost, And The Books I Gathered There Lost, Or Sold- But More Books Bought, And In Another Place, Board By Board And Stone By Stone, Like A House, A True Life Built, And All Because I Was Steadfast About One Or Two Things: Loving Foxes, And Poems, The Blank Piece Of Paper, And My Own Energy- And Mostly The Shimmering Shoulders Of The World That Shrug Carelessly Over The Fate Of Any Individual That They May, The Better, Keep The Niles And Amazons Flowing.

Wherever I Am, The World Comes After Me. It Offers Me Its Busyness. It Does Not Believe That I Do Not Want It. Now I Understand Why The Old Poets Of China Went So Far And High Into The Mountains, Then Crept Into The Pale Mist.

Things Take The Time They Take. Don't Worry.

So This Is How You Swim Inward. So This Is How You Flow Outwards. So This Is How You Pray.

Emerson, I Am Trying To Live, As You Said We Must, The Examined Life. But There Are Days I Wish There Was Less In My Head To Examine, Not To Speak Of The Busy Heart.

In College, You Learn How To Learn. Four Years Is Not Too Much Time To Spend At That.

I Have A Little Dog Who Likes To Nap With Me. He Climbs On My Body And Puts His Face In My Neck. He Is Sweeter Than Soap. He Is More Wonderful Than A Diamond Necklace, Which Can't Even Bark.

We All Have A Hungry Heart, And One Of The Things We Hunger For Is Happiness. So As Much As I Possibly Could, I Stayed Where I Was Happy. I Spent A Great Deal Of Time In My Younger Years Just Writing And Reading, Walking Around The Woods In Ohio, Where I Grew Up.

What Can We Do About God, Who Makes And Then Breaks Every God-forsaken, Beautiful Day?

Writers Sometimes Give Up What Is Most Strange And Wonderful About Their Writing - Soften Their Roughest Edges - To Accommodate Themselves Toward A Group Response.

I Know Death Is The Fascinating Snake Under The Leaves, Sliding And Sliding; I Know The Heart Loves Him Too, Can't Turn Away, Can't Break The Spell. Everything Wants To Enter The Slow Thickness, Aches To Be Peaceful Finally And At Any Cost. Wants To Be Stone.

It Doesn't Have To Be The Blue Iris, It Could Be Weeds In A Vacant Lot, Or A Few Small Stones; Just Pay Attention, Then Patch A Few Words Together And Don't Try To Make Them Elaborate, This Isn't A Contest But The Doorway Into Thanks, And A Silence In Which Another Voice May Speak.

We Do Not Love Anything More Deeply Than We Love A Story.

We Shake With Joy, We Shake With Grief. What A Time They Have, These Two Housed As They Are In The Same Body.

The Most Regretful People On Earth Are Those Who Felt The Call To Creative Work, Who Felt Their Own Creative Power Restive And Uprising, And Gave To It Neither Power Nor Time.

Someone I Loved Once Gave Me A Box Full Of Darkness. It Took Me Years To Understand That This Too, Was A Gift.

We Can Know A Lot. And Still, No Doubt, There Are Rash And Wonderful Ideas Brewing Somewhere; There Are Many Surprises Yet To Come.

I Learned To Build Bookshelves And Brought Books To My Room, Gathering Them Around Me Thickly. I Read By Day And Into The Night. I Thought About Perfectibility, And Deism, And Adjectives, And Clouds, And The Foxes, I Locked My Door, From The Inside, And Leaped From The Roof And Went To The Woods, By Day Or Darkness.

Invention Hovers Always A Little Above The Rules.

It's Very Important To Write Things Down Instantly, Or You Can Lose The Way You Were Thinking Out A Line. I Have A Rule That If I Wake Up At 3 In The Morning And Think Of Something, I Write It Down. I Can't Wait Until Morning - It'll Be Gone.

So Every Day So Every Day I Was Surrounded By The Beautiful Crying Forth Of The Ideas Of God, One Of Which Was You.

When Death Comes…. I Want To Step Through The Door Full Of Curiosity, Wondering: What It’s Going To Be Like, That Cottage Of Darkness? And Therefore I Look Upon Everything As A Brotherhood And A Sisterhood, And I Look Upon Time As No More Than An Idea, And I Consider Eternity As Another Possibility, And I Think Of Each Life As A Flower, As Common As A Field Daisy, And As Singular, And Each Name A Comfortable Music In The Mouth, Tending, As All Music Does, Toward Silence, And Each Body As A Lion Of Courage, And Something Precious To The Earth. [from The Poem "when Death Comes"]

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief.

The Challenge Is To Keep Up With All The New Poets At The Same Time I Love The Old Ones.

The Stars Began To Burn Through The Sheets Of Clouds, And There Was A New Voice Which You Slowly Recognized As Your Own.

I Don't Want To End Up Simply Having Visited This World.

One Day You Finally Knew What You Had To Do, And Began.

To Pay Attention, This Is Our Endless And Proper Work.

Also I Wanted To Be Able To Love And We All Know How That One Goes, Don't We? Slowly

Be Good-natured And Untidy In Your Exuberance.

On The Beach, At Dawn: Four Small Stones Clearly Hugging Each Other. How Many Kinds Of Love Might There Be In The World, And How Many Formations Might They Make And Who Am I Ever To Imagine I Could Know Such A Marvelous Business? When The Sun Broke It Poured Willingly Its Light Over The Stones That Did Not Move, Not At All, Just As, To Its Always Generous Term, It Shed Its Light On Me, My Own Body That Loves, Equally, To Hug Another Body.

My First Two Books Are Out Of Print And, Okay, They Can Sleep There Comfortably. It's Early Work, Derivative Work.

When When It’s Over, It’s Over, And We Don’t Know Any Of Us, What Happens Then. So I Try Not To Miss Anything. I Think, In My Whole Life, I Have Never Missed The Full Moon Or The Slipper Of Its Coming Back. Or, A Kiss. Well, Yes, Especially A Kiss.

I Decided Very Early That I Wanted To Write. But I Didn't Think Of It As A Career. I Didn't Even Think Of It As A Profession... It Was The Most Exciting Thing, The Most Powerful Thing, The Most Wonderful Thing To Do With My Life.

It Is Better For The Heart To Break, Than Not To Break.

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You Have To Be In The World To Understand What The Spiritual Is About, And You Have To Be Spiritual In Order To Truly Be Able To Accept What The World Is About.

Who Do You Want To Be In Your One Wild And Precious Life?

And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

The Sea Is The Most Beautiful Face In Our Universe.

Poetry Is One Of The Ancient Arts, And It Began, As Did All The Fine Arts, Within The Original Wilderness Of The Earth. Also, It Began Through The Process Of Seeing, And Feeling, And Hearing, And Smelling, And Touching, And Then Remembering--i Mean Remembering In Words--what These Perceptual Experiences Were Like, While Trying To Describe The Endless Invisible Fears And Desires Of Our Inner Lives.

With Words, I Could Build A World I Could Live In. I Had A Very Dysfunctional Family, And A Very Hard Childhood. So I Made A World Out Of Words. And It Was My Salvation.

Dysfunctional Family

I Climb, I Backtrack. I Float. I Ramble My Way Home.

Who Knows What Will Happen Or Where I Will Be Sent, Yet Already I Have Given A Great Many Things Away, Expecting To Be Told To Pack Nothing, Except The Prayers Which, With This Thirst, I Am Slowly Learning.

I Love The Line Of Flaubert About Observing Things Very Intensely. I Think Our Duty As Writers Begins Not With Our Own Feelings, But With The Powers Of Observing.

This Is The First, Wildest, And Wisest Thing I Know, That The Soul Exists, And That It Is Built Entirely Out Of Attention.

For Poems Are Not Words, After All, But Fires For The Cold, Ropes Let Down To The Lost, Something As Necessary As Bread In The Pockets Of The Hungry.

The Man Who Has Many Answers Is Often Found In The Theaters Of Information Where He Offers, Graciously, His Deep Findings. While The Man Who Has Only Questions, To Comfort Himself, Makes Music.

I Don't Ask For The Sights In Front Of Me To Change, Only The Depth Of My Seeing.

Sing, If You Can Sing, And It Not Still Be Musical Inside Yourself.

For Some Things There Are No Wrong Seasons. Which Is What I Dream Of For Me.

When It's Over, I Want To Say: All My Life I Was A Bride Married To Amazement. I Was The Bridegroom, Taking The World Into My Arms. When It Is Over, I Don't Want To Wonder If I Have Made Of My Life Something Particular, And Real. I Don't Want To Find Myself Sighing And Frightened, Or Full Of Argument. I Don't Want To End Up Simply Having Visited This World.

And It Is Exceedingly Short, His Galloping Life. Dogs Die So Soon. I Have My Stories Of That Grief, No Doubt Many Of You Do Also. It Is Almost A Failure Of Will, A Failure Of Love, To Let Them Grow Old-or So It Feels. We Would Do Anything To Keep Them With Us, And To Keep Them Young. The One Gift We Cannot Give.

The Poet Must Not Only Write The Poem But Must Scrutinize The World Intensely, Or Anyway That Part Of The World He Or She Has Taken For Subject. If The Poem Is Thin, It Is Likely So Not Because The Poet Does Not Know Enough Words, But Because He Or She Has Not Stood Long Enough Among The Flowers--has Not Seen Them In Any Fresh, Exciting, And Valid Way.

On Poetry: Everyone Wants To Know What It Means. But Nobody Is Asking, How Does It Feel?

Oh, To Love What Is Lovely, And Will Not Last! What A Task To Ask Of Anything, Or Anyone, Yet It Is Ours, And Not By The Century Or The Year, But By The Hours.

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, She Took Me Back So Tenderly, Arranging Her Dark Skirts, Her Pockets Full Of Lichens And Seeds. I Slept As Never Before, A Stone On The River Bed, Nothing Between Me And The White Fire Of The Stars But My Thoughts, And They Floated Light As Moths Among The Branches Of The Perfect Trees. All Night I Heard The Small Kingdoms Breathing Around Me, The Insects, And The Birds Who Do Their Work In The Darkness. All Night I Rose And Fell, As If In Water, Grappling With A Luminous Doom. By Morning I Had Vanished At Least A Dozen Times Into Something Better.

I Saw That Worrying Had Come To Nothing And Gave It Up. And Took My Old Body And Went Out Into The Morning, And Sang.

When I Am Alone I Can Become Invisible. I Can Sit On The Top Of A Dune As Motionless As An Uprise Of Weeds, Until The Foxes Run By Unconcerned. I Can Hear The Almost Unhearable Sound Of The Roses Singing.

...sometimes I Dream That Everything In The World Is Here, In My Room, In A Great Closet, Named And Orderly, And I Am Here Too, In Front Of It, Hardly Able To See For The Flash And The Brightness- And Sometimes I Am That Madcap Person Clapping My Hands And Singing; And Sometimes I Am That Quiet Person Down On My Knees.

Almost Anything Is Too Much. I Am Trying In My Poems To Have The Reader Be The Experiencer. I Do Not Want To Be There. It Is Not Even A Walk We Take Together.

Every Day I Walk Out Into The World / To Be Dazzled, Then To Be Reflective.

I Wanted The Past To Go Away, I Wanted To Leave It, Like Another Country; I Wanted My Life To Close, And Open Like A Hinge, Like A Wing, Like The Part Of The Song Where It Falls Down Over The Rocks: An Explosion, A Discovery; I Wanted To Hurry Into The Work Of My Life; I Wanted To Know, Whoever I Was, I Was Alive For A Little While.

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