Poets are immersed in process, and I mean process not as an amorphous blur but as a discipline. The hard work of writing has taught me that in matters of the heart, such as writing, or faith, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but only the way of your life. Just paying attention will teach you what bears fruit and what doesn't. But it will be necessary to revise--to doodle, scratch out, erase, even make a mess of things--in order to make it come out right.

I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers.

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?

They are fruit and transport: ripening melons, prairie schooners journeying under full sail.

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.

True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who 'have found the center of their lives in their own hearts'.