I Think This Is True For All

Poems Come From Ordinary Experiences And Objects, I Think. Out Of Memory - A Dress I Lent My Daughter On Her Way Back To College; A Newspaper Photograph Of War; A Breast Self-exam; The Tooth Fairy; Calvinist Parents Who Beat Up Their Children; A Gesture Of Love; Seeing Oneself Naked Over Age 50 In A Set Of Bright Hotel Bathroom Mirrors.

To Me, The Mind Seems To Be Spread Out In The Whole Body - The Senses Are Part Of The Brain. I Guess They're Not Where The Thinking Is Done.

Maybe We Can Use A Metaphor For It, Out Of Dance. I Think For Many Years I Was Aware Of The Need, In Dance And In Life, To Breathe Deeply And To Take In More Air Than We Usually Take In.

Writing Or Making Anything-a Poem, A Bird Feeder, A Chocolate Cake-has Self-respect In It. You're Working. You're Trying. You're Not Lying Down On The Ground, Having Given Up.

There Is Something In Me Maybe Someday To Be Written; Now It Is Folded, And Folded, And Folded, Like A Note In School.