poetry had everything to teach me about life.

No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.

Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.

Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.

For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

Who you are isn't tied solely to what you say, even though it may feel that way to you now.