Old age is not an illness, it is a timeless ascent. As power diminishes, we grow toward the light.

It takes a long time for words to become thought.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

Inside my mother's death / I lay and could not breathe.

It is always hard to hear the buried truth from another person.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

The beginner hugs his infant poem to him and does not want it to grow up. But you may have to break your poem to remake it.