“Something unpronounceablefollowed by a long silencepoints out my lifeis becoming a landscape.”

“Choice, and all its attendant energy, is a characteristic of youth. It is before one chooses that one feels desire and longing without fulfillment, which gives an edge to any artistic endeavor. Galway Kinnell recently said in an interview that a young poet has so many choices but an old poet must simply endure his chosen life.”

“If there is any irreverence in my own work, I hope it is the irreverence I bear in mistrusting my own sincere self, which then sincerely mistrusts the irreverent me. If there is a bottom to this, I think it is a life’s work.”

“The teacher asks a question.You know the answer, you suspectyou are the only one in the classroom who knows the answer, because the personin question is yourself, and on that you are the greatest living authority,but you don’t raise your hand.You raise the top of your deskand take out an apple.You look out the window.You don’t raise your hand and there issome essential beauty in your fingers,which aren’t even drumming, but lie flat and peaceful.The teacher repeats the question. Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,a robin is ruffling its feathersand spring is in the air.”

“Attempting to Soar"A boy from Brooklyn used to cruise on summer nights.As soon as he’d hit sixty he’d hold his hand out the window,cupping it around the wind. He’d been assuredthis is exactly how a woman’s breast feels when you putyour hand around it and apply a little pressure. Now he knew,and he loved it. Night after night, again and again, untilthe weather grew cold and he had to roll the window up.For many years afterwards he was perpetually attemptingto soar. One winter’s night, holding his wife’s breastin his hand, he closed his eyes and wanted to weep.He loved her, but it was the wind he imagined now.As he grew older, he loved the word etcetera and refusedto abbreviate it. He loved sweet white butter. He oftenpretended to be playing the organ. On one of his last mornings,he noticed the shape of his face molded in the pillow.He shook it out, but the next morning it reappeared.”

“For years the tears fellwithout touching the ground.On this night they hit the floor.”

“The industrial world destroys nature not because it doesn’t love it but because it is not afraid of it.”