The Ancestors Are Very Much Invested In

The Best Poems Take Long Journeys. I Like Poetry Best That Journeys--while Remaining In The Human Scale--to The Other World, Which May Be A Place As Easily Overlooked As A Bee's Wing

In Some Mayan Villages They Even Have A Stage Beyond The Elder That They Call The Echo Person. They Say That When An Echo Person, Whether A Man Or A Woman, Speaks, The Words Echo Both In This World And In The Other World. That's Why They Are Called Echo People.

Vertical Thought Likes To Imagine The Vast Distances Between The Stars.

When Anyone Seriously Pursues An Art - Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Composing - Over Twenty Or Thirty Years, The Sustained Discipline Carries The Artist Down To The Countryside Of Grief, And That Descent, Resisted So Long Proves Invigorating. . . . As I've Gotten Older, I Find I Am Able To Be Nourished More By Sorrow And To Distinguish It From Depression.

We Know That The Adult In A Certain Sense Has An Attitude Toward Life Exactly Opposite To The Attitude Of Commercials. Commercials Say, 'your Longing For 3.2 Beer Is Very Important. Your Longing For Skin That Doesn't Have Any Wrinkles In It, That's Very, Very, Very Important.' The Adult Says, 'no, I've Got Wrinkles, So What?'