After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine cone You never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you. Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scat Of a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it home And did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, Thinking How it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet. It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear

Writing a poem ... is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind.

On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel?

Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.