“She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.”

“No duties. I don’t have to be profound.I don’t have to be artistically perfect.Or sublime. Or edifying.I just wander. I say: ‘You were running,That’s fine. It was the thing to do.’And now the music of the worlds transforms me.My planet enters a different house.Trees and lawns become more distinct.Philosophies one after another go out.Everything is lighter yet not less odd.Sauces, wine vintages, dishes of meat.We talk a little of district fairs,Of travels in a covered wagon with a cloud of dust behind,Of how rivers once were, what the scent of calamus is.That’s better than examining one’s private dreams.And meanwhile it has arrived. It’s here, invisible.Who can guess how it got here, everywhere.Let others take care of it. Time for me to play hooky.Buena notte. Ciao. Farewell.”

“Since poetry deals with the singular, not the general, it cannot - if it is good poetry - look at things of this earth other than as colorful, variegated, and exciting, and so, it cannot reduce life, with all its pain, horror, suffering, and ecstasy, to a unified tonality of boredom and complaint. By necessity poetry is therefore on the side of being and against nothingness.”

“When, after a long life, it falls outThat he takes on a form he had soughtAnd every word carved in stoneGrows its hoarfrost, what then? TorchesOf Dionysian choruses in the dark mountainsFrom when he comes. And half of the skyWith its snaky clouds. A mirror before him.In the mirror the already severed, perishingThing.”

“Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

“Forget the sufferingYou caused others.Forget the sufferingOthers caused you.The waters run and run,Springs sparkle and are done,You walk the earth you are forgetting.Sometimes you hear a distant refrain.What does it mean, you ask, who is singing?A childlike sun grows warm.A grandson and a great-grandson are born.You are led by the hand once again.The names of the rivers remain with you.How endless those rivers seem!Your fields lie fallow,The city towers are not as they were.You stand at the threshold mute.”

“All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.”