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.

When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die...they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with the process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.

It is sometimes the most fragile things that have the power to endure and become sources of strength.

Being very rich as far as I am concerned is having a margin. The margin is being able to give.

I cannot understand why poetry is not taught at schools as a way of seeing, a quick, untiring path to essentials.

Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.

One thing is certain, and I have always known it - the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about