Across the downs a hummingbird Came dipping through the bowers, He pivoted on emptiness To scrutinize the flowers.

Lo and behold! God made this starry wold, The maggot and the mold; lo and behold! He taught the grass contentment blade by blade, The sanctity of sameness in a shade.

You cannot choose your battlefield, The Gods do that for you; But you can plant a standard Where a standard never flew.

In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose, Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?

Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue; Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies.

The rose has told In one simplicity That never life Relinquishes a bloom But to bestow An ancient confidence.

Let go the lure The striving to unmake; Behold the truth Whenever heart may ache There is a glory In a great mistake.

There is a glory in a great mistake.

The sun shall shine in ages yet to be, The musing moon illumine pastures dim, And afterwards a new nativity For all who slept the dreamless interim.

The starry brocade of the summer night Is linked to us as part of our estate; And every bee that wings its sidelong flight Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy, And the janitor's boy loves me; He's going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography.

When we face every challenge with optimism and learn to fail with our heads up, a great attitude is always success, no matter the outcome.

The man who cannot endure to have his errors and shortcomings brought to the surface and made known, but tries to hide them, is unfit to walk the highway of truth.

My dad was a truck driver, and from the time I was knee high to a grapevine, I was driving a truck.

When men are employed they are best contented.

I always try to keep that feeling of being on the edge. I'm afraid of knowing too well and seeming mechanical.

You do not OWN a dog. You HAVE a dog. And the dog HAS YOU

It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.

Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.

Looking at a first assembly is kind of like looking at an overgrown garden. You can't just wade in with a weed whacker; you don't yet know where the stems of the flowers are.

Wherever humanity has made that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality is a sacred spot.