To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.

Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled-to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-that the light is everything-that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.

On the beach, at dawn: Four small stones clearly Hugging each other. How many kinds of love Might there be in the world, And how many formations might they make And who am I ever To imagine I could know Such a marvelous business? When the sun broke It poured willingly its light Over the stones That did not move, not at all, Just as, to its always generous term, It shed its light on me, My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body.

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