LITTLE DOGS RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT (PERCY THREE) He puts his cheek against mine and makes small, expressive sounds. And when I'm awake, or awake enough he turns upside down, his four paws in the air and his eyes dark and fervent. Tell me you love me, he says. Tell me again. Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it. I get to tell.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Today again I am hardly myself. It happens over and over.

Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.

We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story.

Poetry is one of the original arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.