“My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums...”

“Sometimes I dreamthat everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly,and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness—and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing; and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.”

“for how many years have you gone through the houseshutting the windows,while the rain was still five miles awayand veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the northaway from youand you did not even know enoughto be sorry,you were gladthose silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple,were sweeping on, elsewhere,violent and electric and uncontrollable--and will you find yourself finally wanting to forgetall enclosures, includingthe enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will youdash finally, frantically,to the windows and haul them open and lean outto the dark, silvered sky, to everythingthat is beyond capture, shoutingi'm here, i'm here! now, now, now, now, now.”

“And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

“As for the body, it is solid and strong and curiousand full of detail: it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold, in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.”

“On the beach, at dawn:Four small stones clearlyHugging each other.How many kinds of loveMight there be in the world,And how many formations might they makeAnd who am I everTo imagine I could knowSuch a marvelous business?When the sun brokeIt poured willingly its lightOver the stonesThat did not move, not at all,Just as, to its always generous term,It shed its light on me,My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body.”

“In your handsThe dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive.Who would argue otherwise?But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that.What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines?Listen, all you have to do is start and There’ll be no stopping.What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks?And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take yearsBefore, finally, you hear them?”