“Turn from that road's beguiling ease; returnto your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stairchill with disuse, where the croaking toad of timeregards from shimmering eyes your slow ascentand the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stoneto show you how your longing waits alone.What alchemy shines from under that shut door,spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?("The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart")”

“It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.”

“The yellow moon dreamilytipping buttons of lightdown among the leaves. Marimba,marimba - from beyond theblack street.Somebody dancing,somebodygetting the helloutta here. Shadows of catsweave round the treetrunks,the exposed knotty roots.("Scenes from the Life of the Peppertrees")”

“Yes, he is here in thisopen field, in sunlight, amongthe few young trees set outto modify the bare facts--he's here, but onlybecause we are here.When we go, he goes with usto be your hands that neverdo violence, your eyesthat wonder, your livesthat daily praise lifeby living it, by laughter.He is never alone here,never cold in the field of graves.”

“I thought I was growing wings—it was a cocoon.I thought, now is the time to stepinto the fire—it was deep water.Eschatology is a word I learnedas a child: the study of Last Things;facing my mirror—no longer young,the news—always of death,the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoringand howling, howling....("Seeing For a Moment")”

“A voice from the dark called out,"The poets must give usimagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiarimagination of disaster. Peace, not onlythe absence of war." But peace, like a poem,is not there ahead of itself,can't be imagined before it is made,can't be known exceptin the words of its making,grammar of justice,syntax of mutual aid. A feeling towards it,dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we haveuntil we begin to utter its metaphors,learning them as we speak. A line of peace might appearif we restructured the sentence our lives are making,revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,questioned our needs, allowedlong pauses. . . . A cadence of peace might balance its weighton that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,an energy field more intense than war,might pulse then,stanza by stanza into the world,each act of livingone of its words, each worda vibration of light--facetsof the forming crystal.”

“Fire he sang,that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames.New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer. As though his lyre (now I knew its name) were both frost and fire, its chords flamedup to the crown of me. I was seed again. I was fern in the swamp. I was coal. ("A Tree Telling of Orpheus")”