as some strings, untouched, sound when no one is speaking. So it was when love slipped inside us.

Poetry's work is not simply the recording of inner or outer perception; it makes by words and music new possibilities of perceiving

Poems are always interested in what Ivan Illich called 'shadow work,' not least because that is no small part of their own way of working.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

So much of our lives depends on accidents of birth, time, and geography. This haunts me. In some lives, few "or"s are possible. The pain of that is behind the second stanza of this poem.

Existence itself is nothing if not an amazement. Good poems restore amazement.

A tree lives on its roots. If you change the root, you change the tree. Culture lives in human beings. If you change the human heart the culture will follow.