Our relationship with nature has changed radically, irreversibly, but by no means all for the bad. Our new epoch is laced with invention. Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.

What a lonely species we are, searching for signals of life from other galaxies, adopting companion animals, visiting parks and zoos to commune with other beasts. In the process, we discover our shared identity.

Poetry is an act of distillation. It takes contingency samples, is selective. It telescopes time. It focuses what most often floods past us in a polite blur.

The knowing, I told myself, is only a vapor of the mind, and yet it can wreck havok with one's sanity.

Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite

History is an agreed-upon fiction.

Home is where the heart is, we say, rubbing the flint of one abstraction against another.