Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.

Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised my passport's green.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.

Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself.

Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

To begin with, I wanted that truth to life to possess a concrete reliability, and rejoiced most when the poem seemed most direct, an upfront representation of the world it stood in for or stood up for or stood its ground against.

My body was braille for the creeping influences.