I Once Had The Nerve To Ask

A Poet Trains Himself To Stand Out In A Storm And Be Struck By Lightning. If He Is Lucky Enough To Be Struck Six Times, He Becomes Immortal. Randall Jarrell Said It And He's Right.

To Live A Very Long Time... Is Supposed To Be The Desired Object Of All Human Life. But It Is Not. The Main Thing Is To Ride The Flood Tide... How Glorious It Is To Create! For Those Few Moments Of A Lifetime When The Stream Is Running Full And Deep: Those Are The Justification For Everything.

What A View, I Said Again. The River Was Blank And Mindless With Beauty. It Was The Most Glorious Thing I Have Ever Seen. But It Was Not Seeing, Really. For Once It Was Not Just Seeing. It Was Beholding. I Beheld The River In Its Icy Pit Of Brightness, In Its Far-below Sound And Indifference, In Its Large Coil And Tiny Points And Flashes Of The Moon, In Its Long Sinuous Form, In Its Uncomprehending Consequence.

What You Have To Realize When You Write Poetry, Or If You Love Poetry, Is That Poetry Is Just Naturally The Greatest God Damn Thing That Ever Was In The Whole Universe

I Feel Very Happy To See The Sun Come Up Every Day. I Feel Happy To Be Around. ... I Like To Take This Day- Any Day-and Go To Town With It.