“Sing, if you can sing, and if not still bemusical inside yourself.”

“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”

“The Poet With His Face In His HandsYou want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound.So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself acrossthe forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheetslike crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and you can stand there, under it, and roar all youwant and nothing will be disturbed; you can drip with despair all afternoon and still, on a green branch, its wings just lightly touchedby the passing foil of the water, the thrush, puffing out its spotted breast, will sing of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.”

“A Thousand MorningsAll night my heart makes its wayhowever it can over the rough groundof uncertainties, but only until nightmeets and then is overwhelmed bymorning, the light deepening, thewind easing and just waiting, as Itoo wait (and when have I ever beendisappointed?) for redbird to sing”

“Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old.And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path,Carrying his sandals, and singing?”

“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.”