Gather the stars if you wish it so Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then... Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-bye.

I took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.

My room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen was at the end of a hall.

My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself.

To never see a fool you lock yourself in your room and smash the looking-glass.

POETRY: A sliver of the moon lost in the belly of a golden frog.

And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release — out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?