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.

Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying time in bags.

When anyone seriously pursues an art - painting, poetry, sculpture, composing - over twenty or thirty years, the sustained discipline carries the artist down to the countryside of grief, and that descent, resisted so long proves invigorating. . . . As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.

I think that poetry is important when you are shipwrecked, when the ordinary structures that hold you up are gone.

The candle is not lit To give light, but to testify to the night.

The ancestors are very much invested in the children, because the children are the ones who are going to continue the world that the ancestors made.

Adulthood has something to do with not choosing any of the pure points of view, but living about half of what you really want to live.