It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak.

At midnight tears Run into your ears.

I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.

Perhaps this very instant is your time.

Women have no wilderness in them They are provident instead Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread.

True revolutions in art restore more than they destroy.

The poem is always the last resort. In it the poet makes a world in little, and finds peace, even though, under complete focused emotion, the evocation be far more bitter than reality, or far more lovely.