If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!

It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.

A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn't catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

I am looking for the human who admits his flaws Who shocks the adversary By being kinder not stronger What would that be like? We don't even know

our limbs which had already traveled far beyond her world, carrying the click of distances in the smooth, untroubled soles of their shoes.

The thousands small birds of January in their smooth soaring cloud finding the trees.

Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.