No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. Nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.

Even if the last move did not succeed, the inner command says move again.

I am not a playwright. A playwright would take "Antigone" and hit it a few clouts and knock it out of shape and restructure it. My versioning was strictly verbal.

I don't miss teaching. I'm learning to take my time for myself.

In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

I drink to keep body and soul apart.

In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.