A life like an intricately woven basket, frayed, worn, broken, unraveled, reworked, reknit from many of its original pieces... Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it.

Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again.

Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.

Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them.

Poetry reminds us of the truths about life and human nature that we knew all along, but forgot somehow because they weren't yet in memorable language.

There is that unique moment when one confronts something new and astonishment begins.

I hate the fearful trimming of possibilities that age brings.