“How fragile we are, between the few good moments.”

“It is, of course, we who house poems as much as their words, and we ourselves must be the locus of poetry's depth of newness. Still, the permeability seems to travel both ways: a changed self will find new meanings in a good poem, but a good poem also changes the shape of the self. Having read it, we are not who we were the moment before.... Art lives in what it awakens in us... Through a good poem's eyes we see the world liberated from what we would have it do. Existence does not guarantee us destination, nor trust, nor equity, nor one moment beyond this instant's almost weightless duration. It is a triteness to say that the only thing to be counted upon is that what you count on will not be what comes. Utilitarian truths evaporate: we die. Poems allow us not only to bear the tally and toll of our transience, but to perceive, within their continually surprising abundance, a path through the grief of that insult into joy.”

“There the beloved red sweater,bright tangle of necklace, earrings of amber.Each confirming: I chose these, I.But habit is different: it chooses.And we, it's good horse,opening our mouths at even the sight of the bit.”

“One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read - in such a moment, anything can happen.”

“I thought I would love you forever—and, a little, I may,in the way I still move toward a crate, knees bent,or reach for a man: as one might stretchfor the three or four fruit that lie in the sun at the topof the tree; too ripe for any moment but this,they open their skin at first touch, yielding sweetness,sweetness and heat, and in me, each time since,the answering yes.”

“One way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem.”

“Standing DeerAs the house of a personin age sometimes grows clutteredwith what istoo loved or too heavy to part with,the heart may grow cluttered.And still the house will be emptied,and still the heart.As the thoughts of a personin age sometimes grow sparer,like the great cleanness come into a room, the soul may grow sparer;one sparrow song carves it completely.And still the room is full,and still the heart.Empty and filled,like the curling half-light of morning,in which everything is still possible and so why not.Filled and empty,like the curling half-light of evening,in which everything now is finished and so why not.Beloved, what can be, what was,will be taken from us.I have disappointed.I am sorry. I knew no better.A root seeks water.Tenderness only breaks open the earth.This morning, out the window,the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.”