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.

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

I took one look and fell, hook and tumble.

The three ingredients of poetry: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, the energy of language.

In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it.

Don't we all die someday and someday comes all too soon? What will you do with your own wild, glorious chance at this thing we call life.

I feel the terror of idleness, like a red thirst. Death isn't just an idea.