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

Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response.

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.

... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers.

And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won't be true but they'll be real

Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dak trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more the prettiness.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine