In life, you gotta do something. And the medical journals keep on saying if you've got a goal or some passion in life, you'll outlive all the other guys who - the bank manager that retired. They gave him a rocking chair and he rocked himself to death. So you gotta have a passion, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's this or something else, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a reason to get out of bed every morning, as my accountant of 50 years keeps on saying.

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.

Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

There is this cave In the air behind my body That nobody is going to touch: A cloister, a silence Closing around a blossom of fire. When I stand upright in the wind, My bones turn to dark emeralds.

It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.

Most of the pollution in the water already is dead animal and plant matter and building debris, ... good stagnant nursery for mosquitoes.