I am luminous with age.

These are the stories that never, never die, that are carried like seed into a new country, are told to you and me and make in us new and lasting strengths.

Hard times ain't quit and we ain't quit.

Money is only money, beans tonight and steak tomorrow. So long as you can look yourself in the eye.

The people always know that some of the grain will be good, some of the crop will be saved, some will return and bear the strength of the kernel, that from the bloodiest year some survive to outfox the frost.

It was the bumble bee and the butterfly who survived, not the dinosaur.

Lie in the sun with the child in your flesh shining like a jewel. Dream and sing, pagan, wise in your vitals. Stand still like a fat budding tree, like a stalk of corn athrob and aglisten in the heat. Lie like a mare panting with the dancing feet of colts against her sides. Sleep at night as the spring earth. Walk heavily as a wheat stalk at its full time bending towards the earth waiting for the reaper. Let your life swell downward so you become like a vase, a vessel. Let the unknown child knock and knock against you and rise like a dolphin within.