“I tell you thisto break your heart,by which I mean onlythat it break open and never close againto the rest of the world.”

“It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.”

“There are things you can’t reach. ButYou can reach out to them, and all day long.The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing aroundAs though with your arms open.”

“LandscapeIsn't it plain the sheets of moss, except thatthey have no tongues, could lectureall day if they wanted aboutspiritual patience? Isn't it clearthe black oaks along the path are standingas though they were the most fragile of flowers?Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors of my heartever close, I am as good as dead.Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And nowthe crows break off from the rest of the darknessand burst up into the sky—as thoughall night they had thought of what they would like their lives to be, and imaginedtheir strong, thick wings.”

“eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in…And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a starBoth intimate and ultimate, And you will be heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisperOh let me, for a while longer, enter the twoBeautiful bodies of your lungs...Look, and look again.This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.It’s more than bones.It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.It’s more than the beating of a single heart.It’s praising.It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.You have a life- just imagine that!You have this day, and maybe another, and maybeStill another…And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”

“Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.”

“DogfishI wantedThe past to go away, I wantedTo leave it, like another country; I wantedMy life to close, and openLike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song Where it fallsDown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted To hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,Whoever I was, I wasAliveFor a little while.…mostly, I want to be kind.And nobody, of course, is kind,Or mean,For a simple reason.And nobody gets out of it, having to Swim through the fires to stay inThis world.”