He married a woman to stop her getting away Now she's there all day.

Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.

Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.

The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said.

The poetic impulse is distinct from ideas about things or feelings about things, though it may use these. It's more like a desire to separate a piece of one's experience & set it up on its own, an isolated object never to trouble you again, at least not for a bit. In the absence of this impulse nothing stirs.

A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: The rest is a desert full of bigots. That's what I think I'd like . . . a version of pastoral.

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke... Is a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can't come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere.