“Poetry is a life-cherishing force.”

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”

“Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?”

“GOING TO WALDENIt isn't very far as highways lie.I might be back by nightfall, having seenThe rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!Many have gone, and think me half a foolTo miss a day away in the cool country.Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,Going to Walden is not so easy a thingAs a green visit. It is the slow and difficultTrick of living, and finding it where you are.”

“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.”

“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”