“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”

“TreeIt is foolishto let a young redwoodgrow next to a house.Even in this one lifetime,you will have to choose.That great calm being,this clutter of soup pots and books--Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.”

“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.”

“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.”

“As this life is not a gate, but the horse plunging through it.”

“You must try,the voice said, to become colder.I understood at once.It's like the bodies of gods: cast in bronze,braced in stone. Only something heartlesscould bear the full weight.”

“Everything has two endings-a horse, a piece of string, a phone call. Before a life, air. And after. As silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing.”