If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.

Behaviour that's admired is the path to power among people everywhere.

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

Poetry is language in orbit.

Two buckets were easier carried than one. / I grew up in between.

But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.