“Boy and EggEvery few minutes, he wantsto march the trail of flattened rye grassback to the house of mutteringhens. He too could makea bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so freshit felt hot in his hand and he pressed itto his ear while the other childrenlaughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,so little yet, too forgetful in games,ready to cry if the ball brushed him,riveted to the secret of birdscaught up inside his fist,not ready to give it overto the refrigeratoror the rest of the day.”

“Remembering your mistakes more acutely than any minor success. This was the worst. The things that kept you up at night. Tip a waiter that was too small. The words that didn't fit the moment. Words that didn't come till to late. You could kill yourself in increments, punishing your spirit day after day-regret. Guilt. Not the guilt of the little girl who woke in the night embarrassed God was mad at her because she had ticked balls under her shirt, pretending to have breasts. "I even felt sexy." That was sweet, and pure, no crime at all. But the crime of obsessive replay-get rid of it, get rid of it. Who could ever have known that hardest punishments would be the ones you gave yourself?”

“Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it al out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.”

“The RiderA boy told meif he roller-skated fast enoughhis loneliness couldn't catch up to him,the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion.What I wonder tonightpedaling hard down King William Streetis if it translates to bicycles.A victory! To leave your lonelinesspanting behind you on some street cornerwhile you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,pink petals that have never felt loneliness,no matter how slowly they fell.”

“In these evenings he sat by our beds weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.”

“maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will makesomething of our lives. what if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. what else is missing?maybe our steps are too straight and our paths too narrow and not overlapping. maybe when they overlap someone in another country lights a candle, a coupleresolves their argument, a young man puts down his silver gun and walks away.”

“KindnessBefore you know what kindness really isyou must lose things,feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,all this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindness.How you ride and ridethinking the bus will never stop,the passengers eating maize and chickenwill stare out the window forever.Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,you must travel where the Indian in a white poncholies dead by the side of the road.You must see how this could be you,how he too was someonewho journeyed through the night with plansand the simple breath that kept him alive.Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.You must wake up with sorrow.You must speak to it till your voicecatches the thread of all sorrowsand you see the size of the cloth.Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,only kindness that ties your shoesand sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,only kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayIt is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywherelike a shadow or a friend.”