And so I told him how living in Japan would give him a leisure no mere tourist has, to know the rhythms of the place, a land of tiny poems.

There lived a sage in days of yore, And he a handsome pigtail wore; But wondered much and sorrowed more Because it hung behind him.

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

My true-love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driven.

Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!

Sacred space in whichTo distil, like amber,The best of your love.

The fact that Iam writing to youin Englishalready falsifies what Iwanted to tell you.My subject:how to explain to youthat I don’t belong to Englishthough I belong nowhere else,if not herein English.

When you told me I didn’t love youI simply thought how would you knowFor I remembered the spaces between your fingersAnd the crease between your eyesHow dare you tell meI never thought of you as...

writing home”here in the wilderness of australiawriting home becomes easyin spite of the spreading wild firesthere is less heat, more certainty.writing home, writing thisi think of those without real homes–our city, people say, provides houseswhich...

We love the things we love for what they are.

Poetry is another name for a person’s telling of the self, existence and what is beyond, and one’s own perceptions.

I could give all to Time except — exceptWhat I myself have held. But why declareThe things forbidden that while the Customs sleptI have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,And what I would...

Dear Lover,Your laughter is warm rain, and you are the rainbow.

The Long HillI must have passed the crest a while ago And now I am going down– Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know, But the brambles were always grabbing at the...

before the gate –my walking stick’s made a riverof melting snow

All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,Mewling and...

The world will not be saved by poets or poetry.

It is our fate to give ourselves most lavishlyto those who’d rather not be burdened with the gift

Poetry is prose in slow motion.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.

while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love,...

When You Are OldWhen you are old and grey and full of sleep And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once,...

I’ve come down from the skylike some damned ghost, delayedtoo long…To the abandoned fieldsthe trees returned and grew.They stand and grow. Time comesTo them, time goes, the treesStand; the only placeThey go is where they...

Poetry will die when love and pain cease to exist.

There may be losses too great to understandThat rove after you and–faint and terrible– rip unknown through your hand.

To SolitudeO Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal...

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory...

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

Only those who will love longer than they expected to can truly love pecan pie, which doesn’t explain its status as death rows most requested last dessert, or why chopped pecans, corn syrup, directions from...

The city they are building asks you to stay; remind yourself what is worth keeping, while the lighthouse of your moan warns the ship of your heart that he is a stone.

From love’s plectrum arisesthe song of the string of lifeLove is the light of lifelove is the fire of life

The future belongs to all who, refusing to look back at the past move ahead with the clock as it ticks.

Poetry and art nourish the soul of the world with the flavor-filled substances of beauty, wisdom and truth.

Mathematicians still don’t understandthe ball our hands made, or howyour electrocuted grandparents made it possiblefor you to light my cigarettes with your eyes.It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the windowto leave six ounces...

Siempre hay un rey sobre un caballoen las viejas ciudades;lo custodian las fuentes y los niñosy un insólito pájaro.Cuando los veo, pienso que la muertemira de las estatuasarmada hasta los dientes, con sus ojosde bronce...

I’m looking for youinto that silverspoon where I taste my reflection to feel the touch of your untouchables- from the poem “Looking For You

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

. . .because we had survivedsisters and brothers, daughters and sons,we discovered bones that rosefrom the dark earth and sangas white birds in the treesBecause the story of our lifebecomes our lifeBecause each of us...

People are laughing at me today for having holes in my pockets, and ink blood on my fingers- a thirty-something old writer, who strangles words from dictionaries, and feeds on the decay of poetry.

Eggshells become hard to break after walking on them for so long.

For the Wife Beater’s WifeWith blue irises her face is blossomed. BlueCircling to yellow, circling to brown on her cheeks.The long bone of her jaw untrackedShe hides in our kitchen.He sleeps it off next door.Her...

My NameOnce when the lawn was a golden green and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed with the chirr and murmur of insects, I...

from “Semele Recycled”But then your great voice rang out under the skiesmy name!– and all those private namesfor the parts and places that had loved you best.And they stirred in their nest of hay and...

Depths of Friendship…under fathoms deepof dark and bitter coldan eerie oscillationreverberated brash and bold…

Mega biblion, mega kakon (Big book, big evil)

Optimism / stung like grit in my swimsuit all the long ride home . . .

Farewell to thee! but not farewellTo all my fondest thoughts of thee:Within my heart they still shall dwell;And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Percy wakes me (fourteen)Percy wakes me and I am not ready.He has slept all night under the covers.Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen...

Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day.