Images Are The Heart Of Poetry ...

I'm Hunting For The Truth. It Might Be A Kind Of Poetic Truth, And Not Just A Factual One, Because Behind Everything That Happens To You, There Is Another Truth, A Secret Life.

Now, In My Middle Age, About Nineteen In The Head I'd Say, I Am Rowing, I Am Rowing.

Pulling Off The Fat Diamond Engagement Ring, Pulling Off The Elopement Wedding Ring, And Holding Them, Clicking Them In Thumb And Forefinger, The Indent Of Twenty-five Years, Like A Tiny Rip Leaving Its Mark.

I Keep Feeling That There Isn't One Poem Being Written By Any One Of Us - Or A Book Or Anything Like That. The Whole Life Of Us Writers, The Whole Product I Guess I Mean, Is The One Long Poem - A Community Effort If You Will. It's All The Same Poem. It Doesn't Belong To Any One Writer - It's God's Poem Perhaps. Or God's People's Poem.

The Summer Has Seized You, As When, Last Month In Amalfi, I Saw Lemons As Large As Your Desk-side Globe-that Miniature Map Of The World-and I Could Mention, Too, The Market Stalls Of Mushrooms And Garlic Bugs All Engorged. Or I Even Think Of The Orchard Next Door, Where The Berries Are Done And The Apples Are Beginning To Swell. And Once, With Our First Backyard,i Remember I Planted An Acre Of Yellow Beans We Couldn't Eat.