Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for a while. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way. We articulate the truth of a situation by carrying the whole experience in the voice and allowing the process to blossom of its own accord. Out of the cross-grain of experience appears a voice that not only sums up the process we have gone through, but allows the soul to recognize in its timbre, the color, texture, and complicated entanglements of being alive.

I returned to poetry as a more precise way to describe the world, more precise than science.

For the personality, bankruptcy or failure may be a disaster. For the soul, it may be grist for its strangely joyful mill, and a condition it has been secretly engineering for years.

A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but the child will surprise you continually. I think a work of art has its own aliveness, its own future.

The moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already turning towards home.

The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.

All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.