I Held My Breath As We Do

The Poet Must Not Only Write The Poem But Must Scrutinize The World Intensely, Or Anyway That Part Of The World He Or She Has Taken For Subject. If The Poem Is Thin, It Is Likely So Not Because The Poet Does Not Know Enough Words, But Because He Or She Has Not Stood Long Enough Among The Flowers--has Not Seen Them In Any Fresh, Exciting, And Valid Way.

My Work Is Loving The World.

Things Take The Time They Take. Don't Worry.

The Poem In Which The Reader Does Not Feel Himself Or Herself A Participant Is A Lecture, Listened To From An Uncomfortable Chair, In A Stuffy Room, Inside A Building.

I Know I Can Walk Through The World, Along The Shore Or Under The Trees, With My Mind Filled With Things Of Little Importance, In Full Self-attendance. A Condition I Can't Really Call Being Alive.