The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As I can too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. Full tonight. So we go and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think about time and space, makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven. Thus we sit, I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up into my face. As though I were his perfect moon.

I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy.

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

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.