Shared Laughter Is Erotic Too.

Where I Came From, The Nights I Had Wandered And Survived Scared Them, And Where I Would Go They Never Imagined.

Listening Is Terribly Important If You Want To Understand Anything About People. You Listen To What They Say And How They Say It, What They Share And What They Are Reticent About, What They Tell Truthfully And What They Lie About, What They Hope For And What They Fear, What They Are Proud Of, What They Are Ashamed Of. If You Don't Pay Attention To Other People, How Can You Understand Their Choices Through Time And How Their Stories Come Out?

One Of The Best Gifts You Can Give A Poet Is To Present Them With Field Guides - To Rocks, To Stars, To Birds, To Wildflowers, To Trees And Bushes, To Butterflies, To Reptiles And Amphibians. Because When You Look At Anything Long Enough To Be Able To Identify It, You See Far More Clearly And You Make A Tiny Beginning At Understanding The Life, The Place, The History Of That Bird Or Rock Or Mammal.

History Is A Game Played Backwards Only.

Now That I Am In My Forties, She [my Mother] Tells Me I'm Beautiful; Now That I Am In My Forties, She Sends Me Presents And We Have The Long, Personal And Even Remarkably Honest Phone Calls I Always Wanted So Intensely I Forbade Myself To Imagine Them. How Strange. Perhaps Shaw Was Correct And If We Lived To Be Several Hundred Years Old, We Would Finally Work It All Out. I Am Deeply Grateful. With My Poems, I Finally Won Even My Mother. The Longest Wooing Of My Life.