I Dance/for The Joy Of Surviving, At

The Supreme Morality Of Art Is To Endure.

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.

Deftly They Opened The Brain Of A Child, And It Was Full Of Flying Dreams.

Not That You Need To Be A Saint To Have Visions Worth Talking About. The Most Effective Prescription, I Suspect, Is To Be A Disciplined Sinner. Perfection, As Valery Noted, Is Work.

I Refuse To Turn To Theology To Justify The Life Or Redeem It. There Is A Question Always Of The Connection To The Eternal. I Say To Myself Above All, Keep Alive Your Conviction That There Are Sacred Elements In The Life In The Practice Of The Life That Must Be Respected. But The Conviction In The Existence Of The Sacred Does Not Necessarily Imply That You Need To Believe In A Creator, Because We Are The Ones That Made The Sacred.