Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude, then a cluster when there is hardly time to breathe.

We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be.

For inside all the weakness of old age, the spirit, God knows, is as mercurial as it ever was.

May we agree that private life is irrelevant? Multiple, mixed, ambiguous at best - out of it we try to fashion the crystal clear, the singular, the absolute, and that is what is relevant; that is what matters.

Poetry is a dangerous profession between conflict and resolution, between feeling and thought, between becoming and being, between the ultra-personal and the universal - and these balances are shifting all the time.

gardening is a madness, a folly that does not go away with age. Quite the contrary.

life is always bringing unexpected gifts.