Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming. Already there is dusk instead of darkness at five in the afternoon; already hope is stirring at the edges of the day.

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year.

I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.

The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them.