The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

I was hurrying through my own soul . . . I was leaning out . . . I was listening.

Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems.

... the natural world is the old river that runs through everything, and I think poets will forever fish along its shores.

Everybody has to have their little tooth of power. Everybody wants to be able to bite.

Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it--the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.