tears have a purpose. they are what we carry of the ocean, and perhaps we must become the sea, give ourselves to it, if we are to be transformed.

It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.

Sometimes there is a wellspring or river of something beautiful and possible in the tenderest sense that comes to and from the most broken of children, and I was one of these, and whatever is was, I can't name, I can only thank. Perhaps it is the water of life that saves us, after all.

There is a place where the human enters dream and myth, and becomes a part of it, or maybe it is the other way around when the story grows from the body and spirit of humankind. In any case, we are a story, each of us, a bundle of stories, some as false as phantom islands but believed in nevertheless. Some might be true.

We are full of bread and gas, getting fat on the outside while inside we grow thin

Between earth and earth's atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself.

Let's kneel down through all the worlds of the body like lovers. I know I am a tree and full of life and I know you, you are the flying one and will leave. But can't we swallow the sweetness and can't you sing in my arms and sleep in the human light of the sun and moon I have been drinking alone.

It is a paradox in the contemporary world that in our desire for peace we must willingly give ourselves to struggle.

There is a geography of the human spirit, common to all peoples.

We make art out of our loss.

There is a language beyond human language, an elemental language, one that arises from the land itself.

Poetry is a string of words that parades without a permit.

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.