The moment we turn over the soil we start poisoning it and we go on poisoning it all the way through... and there's probably not a river in the United States that doesn't have pesticide poisoning in it. The fish are dying. The seas are getting polluted. All of these things are happening. The rain forests are going. That's what the context is.

On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree

I offer you what I have my Poverty

Your absence has gone through me

Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You've got to stop what you're doing, what you're thinking, and what you're expecting and just be there for the poem for however long it takes.

What you remember saves you.

My words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy.