“A Thirsty FishI don't get tired of you. Don't grow wearyof being compassionate toward me!All this thirst equipmentmust surely be tired of me,the waterjar, the water carrier.I have a thirsty fish in methat can never find enoughof what it's thirsty for!Show me the way to the ocean!Break these half-measures,these small containers.All this fantasyand grief.Let my house be drowned in the wavethat rose last night in the courtyardhidden in the center of my chest.Joseph fell like the moon into my well.The harvest I expected was washed away.But no matter.A fire has risen above my tombstone hat.I don't want learning, or dignity,or respectability.I want this music and this dawnand the warmth of your cheek against mine.The grief-armies assemble,but I'm not going with them.This is how it always iswhen I finish a poem.A great silence comes over me,and I wonder why I ever thoughtto use language.”

“I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.”

“I said to the night, "If you are in love with the moon, it is because you never stay for long."The night turned to me and said, "It is not my fault. I never see the Sun, how can I know that love is endless?”

“Do not leave me,hide in my heart like a secret,wind around my head like a turban."I come and go as I please,"you say, "swift as a heartbeat."You can tease me as much as you likebut never leave me.”

“She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.”

“All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?I have no idea.My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?I cannot stop asking.If I could taste one sip of an answer,I could break out of this prison for drunks.I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.”

“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.”