It’s all right if people think we are idiots.It’s all right if we lie face down on the earth.It’s all right if we open the coffin and climb in.

Finding the FatherMy friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing– as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; it smashes up the boulders, lifting small...

As the saying goes, you might as well be yourself; everyone else is taken.

It is not our job to remain whole.We came to lose our leavesLike the trees, and be born again,Drawing up from the great roots.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.

Early Morning in Your RoomIt’s morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasp-likeCoffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep.The gray light as you pour gleaming water–It seems you’ve traveled years to get here.Finally you deserve a...

I have daughters and I have sons.When one of them lays a handOn my shoulder, shining fishTurn suddenly in the deep sea.

The human face shines as it speaks of thingsNear itself, thoughts full of dreams.The human face shines like a dark skyAs it speaks of those things that oppress the living

We have never understood how birds manage to fly,Nor who the genius is who makes up dreams,Now how heaven and earth can appear in a poem.

It’s good if you can accept your life—you’ll noticeYour face has become deranged trying to adjustTo it. Your face thought your life would lookLike your bedroom mirror when you were ten.That was a clear river...

Don’t ask why the elephants wear such large shoes,And why the kangaroos are reborn kidnappers,And why the sailing birds are all Romantics.