Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary, imperial joy and sorrow of human existence, the dreamed as well as the lived— what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death?

Desire, loneliness, wind in the flowering almond— surely these are the great, the inexhaustible subjects to which my predecessors apprenticed themselves. I hear them echo in my own heart, disguised as convention.

The master said you must write what you see / But what I see does not move me / The master answered Change what you see.

The unsaid, for me, exerts great power.

I had nothing and I was still changed. Like a costume, my numbness was taken away. Then hunger was added.

The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me.

I am attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent, deliberate silence. The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem could be made in this vocabulary. It is analogous to the unseen.