Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death. Then, when his soul is naked, is he one With the man in the wind, and the west moon, With the harmonious thunder of the sun

Washington isn't a city, it's an abstraction.

The best poem is that whose worked-upon unmagical passages come closest, in texture and intensity, to those moments of magical accident.

The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.

What I like to do is treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone or what-have-you, to hew, carve, mold, coil, polish, and plane them into patterns, sequences, sculptures, fugues of sound expressing some lyrical impulse, some spiritual doubt or conviction, some dimly realized truth I must try to reach and realize.

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.

My birthday began with the water - Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name.