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

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me. He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck. He is sweeter than soap. He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace, which can't even bark.

...whoever you are, not matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own.

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

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.