Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

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.

There are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie.

How much hope, expectation, and sheer hard work goes into the smallest success! There is no being sure of anything except that whatever has been created will change in time.

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.

In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on.

It is clear that we do not exactly choose our poems; our poems choose us.