“Why speak of the useof poetry? Poetryis what uses us.”

“A poem is not an expression, norit is an object. Yet it somewhatpartakes of both. What a poem isIs never to be known, for which Ihave learned to be grateful.”

“When the rooms were warm, he'd call,and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,Speaking indifferently to him,Who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I know Of love's austere and lonely offices?”

“Each in His Own TongueA fire mist and a planet,A crystal and a cell,A jellyfish and a saurian,And caves where the cave men dwell;Then a sense of law and beauty,And a face turned from the clod —Some call it Evolution,And others call it God.A haze on the far horizon,The infinite, tender sky,The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,And the wild geese sailing high;And all over upland and lowlandThe charm of the goldenrod —Some of us call it Autumn,And others call it God.Like tides on a crescent sea beach,When the moon is new and thin,Into our hearts high yearningsCome welling and surging in;Come from the mystic ocean,Whose rim no foot has trod —Some of us call it Longing,And others call it God.A picket frozen on duty,A mother starved for her brood,Socrates drinking the hemlock,And Jesus on the rood;And millions who, humble and nameless,The straight, hard pathway plod —Some call it Consecration,And others call it God.”

“What is a ‘woman like you’? Saying it that way suggests you have no choice in the matter. That you’ve been cast in this role as a victim. They may want us to be victims, Alena, but we don’t have to agree to the role.”

“She looked up. "What I can't figure out is why the good things always end.""Everything ends.""Not some things. Not the bad things. They never go away.""Yes, they do. If you let them, they go away. Not as fast as we'd like sometimes, but they end too. What doesn't end is the way we feel about each other. Even when you're all grown up and somewhere else, you can remember what a good time we had together. Even when you're in the middle of bad things and they never seem to be changing, you can remember me. And I'll remember you.”

“Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices?”