Poetry has its own laws speaking for the life of the planet. It is a language that wants to bring back together what the other words have torn apart.

There is a language beyond human language, an elemental language, one that arises from the land itself.

Mystery is part of each life, and maybe it is healthier to uphold it than to spend a lifetime in search of half-made answers.

Telling about our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle.

We are full of bread and gas, getting fat on the outside while inside we grow thin

There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.

And there is also the paradox that the dominating culture imbues the Indian past with great meaning and significance; it is valued more because it is seen as part of the past. And it is the romantic past, not the present, that holds meaning and spiritual significance for so many members of the dominating culture. It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.