“The sexual eagle exults he will gild the earth once morehis descending winghis ascending wing sways imperceptibly the sleeves of the peppermintand all the water's adorable undressDays are counted so clearlythat the mirror has yielded to a froth of frondsof the sky i see but one starnow around us there is only the milk describing its dizzy ellipsisfrom which sometimes soft intuition with pupils of eyed agaterises to poke its umbrella tip in the mud of the electric lightthen great reaches cast anchor stretch out in the depths of my closed eyesicebergs radiating the customs of all the worlds yet to comebron from a fragment of you fragment unkown and iced on the wingyour existence the giant bouquet escaping fr4om my armsis badly tied it didgs out walls unrolls the stairs of housesloses its leaves in the show windows of the streetto gether the news i am always leaving to gather the newsthe newspaper is glass today and if letters no longer arriveit's that the train has been consumedthe great incision of the emerald which gaave birth to the foliageis scarred for always the sawdust of blinding snowand the quarries of flesh are sounding along on the first shelfreversed on this shelfi take the impression of death and lifeto the liquid air”

“to poke its umbrella tip in the mud of the electric light ”

“For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.”

“My, how foolish I am! You know what I've always thought? I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are, just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.”

“I am going to show you great and mighty things which no one has ever seen before.... I am going to take you places where no one has ever been. I am going to take you to heights where no one has ever reached. If you will only come to me with all your heart, I will do a mighty work in you, which no man can undo but yourself.”

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”