I Worked So Hard All My Life,

He Judged The Instant And Let Go; He Flung Himself Loose Into The Stars.

Just Think: In All The Clean, Beautiful Reaches Of The Solar System, Our Planet Alone Is A Blot; Our Planet Alone Has Death.

There Are No Events But Thoughts And The Heart's Hard Turning, The Heart's Slow Learning Where To Love And Whom. The Rest Is Merely Gossip, And Tales For Other Times.

Write About Winter In The Summer. Describe Norway As Ibsen Did, From A Desk In Italy; Describe Dublin As James Joyce Did, From A Desk In Paris. Willa Cather Wrote Her Prairie Novels In New York City; Mark Twain Wrote Huckleberry Finn In Hartford, Connecticut. Recently, Scholars Learned That Walt Whitman Rarely Left His Room.

I Used To Have A Cat, An Old Fighting Tom, Who Would Jump Through The Open Window By My Bed In The Middle Of The Night And Land On My Chest. I'd Half-awaken. He'd Stick His Skull Under My Nose And Purr, Stinking Of Urine And Blood. Some Nights He Kneaded My Bare Chest With His Front Paws, Powerfully, Arching His Back, As If Sharpening His Claws, Or Pummeling A Mother For Milk. And Some Mornings I'd Wake In Daylight To Find My Body Covered With Paw Prints In Blood; I Looked As Though I'd Been Painted With Roses.