I got about half the time I wanted to write poetry. I got about half the time I needed to be a father. So there is something in adulthood that has to do with accepting the half of things, allowing a renunciation of the other half, accepting half a basket instead of a full basket.

I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness.

I felt a longing to compose a radical or root poem that would speak to what has its back turned to me.

Male initiation does not move toward machoism; on the contrary, it moves toward achieving a cultivated heart before we die.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.

When an elder turns to face the dead, that means he turns away from facing the future and his own retirement in Phoenix, let's say. He turns and finds himself facing the children.

What I am trying to do is bring people into grief in relation to the society we have.