Be What You Are. Give What Is

I Dropped My Hoe And Ran Into The House And Started To Write This Poem, 'end Of Summer.’ It Began As A Celebration Of Wild Geese. Eventually The Geese Flew Out Of The Poem, But I Like To Think They Left Behind The Sound Of Their Beating Wings.

Some Poems Present Themselves As Cliffs That Need To Be Climbed. Others Are So Defensive That When You Approach Their Enclosure You Half Expect To Be Met By A Snarling Dog At The Gate. Still Others Want To Smother You With Their Sticky Charms.

A Poet Needs To Keep His Wilderness Alive Inside Him. To Remain A Poet After Forty Requires An Awareness Of Your Darkest Africa, That Part Of Yourself That Will Never Be Tamed.

I Dance/for The Joy Of Surviving, At The Edge Of The Road.

I Want To Write Poems That Are Natural, Luminous, Deep, Spare. I Dream Of An Art So Transparent That You Can Look Through And See The World.