Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth.

Belief is better than anything else, and it is best when rapt - above paying its respects to anybody's doubt whatsoever.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~ And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

The middle of the road is where the white line is - and that's the worst place to drive.

Yes, and even for the past...that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was. Something I can accept. Mistakes made by the self I had to be or was not able to be.

Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.