“Now here I am, living in the land of tall pine trees and red dirt hills”

“I am the kid with the dirty red shoes. That’s not dirt, it’s blood.
”

“I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.”

“He is all pine and I am apple orchard.My apple trees will never get acrossAnd eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.He only says, "Good fences makegood neighbors.”

“The garden stretched out in a soft drift, colors jumbled any way, an unmade bed of red and yellow and pink. Then came the trees. Apple, plum, and the Japanese black pine.”

“But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now.”