“At Blackwater PondAt Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settledafter a night of rain.I dip my cupped hands. I drinka long time. It tasteslike stone, leaves, fire. It falls coldinto my body, waking the bones. I hear themdeep inside me, whisperingoh what is that beautiful thingthat just happened?”

“I knew, even as we touched that I had never wanted anything more in all my life. All my crabbed cravings were as a cupful of pond water beside the vast ocean of longing I felt surging through me. My head swam; my eyes blurred. I burned from the inside out as if my blood and bones were consumed with liquid fire.”

“In Blackwater WoodsLook, the treesare turningtheir own bodiesinto pillarsof light,are giving off the richfragrance of cinnamonand fulfillment,the long tapersof cattailsare bursting and floating away overthe blue shouldersof the ponds,and every pond,no matter what itsname is, isnameless now.Every yeareverythingI have ever learnedin my lifetimeleads back to this: the firesand the black river of losswhose other sideis salvation,whose meaningnone of us will ever know.To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.”

“Mornings at BlackwaterFor years, every morning, I drankfrom Blackwater Pond.It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,the feet of ducks.And always it assuaged mefrom the dry bowl of the very far past.What I want to say isthat the past is the past,and the present is what your life is,and you are capableof choosing what that will be,darling citizen.So come to the pond,or the river of your imagination,or the harbor of your longing,and put your lips to the world.And liveyour life.”

“He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.”

“But I know just what it feels like to have a voice in the back of my head, like a face that I hold inside, face that awakes when I close my eyes, face that watches everytime I lie, face that laughs everytime I fall. (It watches EVERYTHING) ... But the face inside is hearing me, right beneath my skin.”