Let me walk through the fields of paper touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

Every day, every day I hear enough to fill a year of nights with wondering.

In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all.

I believe every space and comma is a living part of the poem and has its function, just as every muscle and pore of the body has its function. And the way the lines are broken is a functioning part essential to the life of the poem.

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.

There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am.