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

My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.

Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?

Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

... Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want to be there. It is not even a walk we take together.