I am that last, thatfinal thing, the bodyin a white sheet listening,

People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.

Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.

Memory is sweet. Even when it’s painful, memory is sweet.

Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.

While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not.

There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Maybe being winged means being wounded by infinity.

Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

The knowledge that it takes to write a poem gets burnt up in the writing of the poem.

Some things never leave a person: scent of the hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight.

It seems ironic, expecting the unexpected, like she had fabricated pieces of her story to make it more interesting. Considering my boredom with the current version, I can't imagine the first draft.

If you're a devoted collector of design, you seek out objects you can love to live with but also live in.

The sense of impending disaster hung over the garden like a chandelier.

Let's deal with reality. The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom.

Our own front door can be a wonderful thing, or a sight we dread; rarely is it only a door.

If our zeal is embittered by expressions of anger, invective, or scorn—we may think we are doing service of the cause of truth, when in reality we shall only bring it into discredit!

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.

I am an Air Force brat - that's the terminology they use for military kids who are traveling constantly.