Imagination is the will of things. . . .

Like the Sweetness of Gardenias Mother, you died 15 years ago. pain, a rapier, cut until, finally, there was just peace like the sweetness of gardenias in the crystal vase on your yellow kitchen table. so fragrant. your voice lingers in my ear reminding, scolding, guiding a pleasant mantra of tenderness, magic words that move my palms, your palms. together we are molding, helping, creating. in the mirror I see your eyes, your beautiful brown circles looking back, so radiant. "don't forget me," you whispered the day you died. I won't.

Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.

in the presence of extraordinary actuality, consciousness takes the place of imagination.

Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.

To name an object is to deprive a poem of three-fourths of its pleasure, which consists in a little-by-little guessing game; the ideal is to suggest.

The imperfect is our paradise.