Every time I deny myself I commit a kind of suicide.

... This is the paradox of vision: Sharp perception softens our existence in the world.

How many small decisions accumulate to form a habit? What a multitude of decisions, made by others, in other times, must shape our lives now.

I know I am made from this earth, as my mother's hands were made from this earth, as her dreams came from this earth and all that I know, I know in this earth, the body of the bird, this pen, this paper, these hands, this tongue speaking, all that I know speaks to me through this earth.

Each life reverberates in every other life. Whether or not we acknowledge it, we are connected, woven together in our needs and desires, rich and poor, men and women alike.

Poetry is a good medium for revolutionary hope.

I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all. We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves.