It feels a long way up and down from zero.

At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.

I see a certain order in the universe and math is one way of making it visible.

Absence becomes the greatest Presence.

The trouble is, old age is not interesting until one gets there. It's a foreign country with an unknown language to the young and even to the middle-aged.

When one's not writing poems - and I'm not at the moment - you wonder how you ever did it. It's like another country you can't reach.

I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I've missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when I push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place.