I refuse to turn to theology to justify the life or redeem it. There is a question always of the connection to the eternal. I say to myself above all, keep alive your conviction that there are sacred elements in the life in the practice of the life that must be respected. But the conviction in the existence of the sacred does not necessarily imply that you need to believe in a creator, because we are the ones that made the sacred.

Certainly the modern poets I cherish most are disturbing spirits; they do not come to coo.

Rhythm to me is essentially what Hopkins called the taste of self. I taste myself as rhythm.

The poem comes in the form of a blessing, like rapture breaking on the mind.

I dance/for the joy of surviving, at the edge of the road.

Memory is each man's poet-in-residence.

Forward my mail to Mars.