Writing poetry is a process of discovery...you can smell the poem before you see it....Like some animal.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

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

Yes, he is here in this open field, in sunlight, among the few young trees set out to modify the bare facts-- he's here, but only because we are here. When we go, he goes with us to be your hands that never do violence, your eyes that wonder, your lives that daily praise life by living it, by laughter. He is never alone here, never cold in the field of graves.

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.

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