“Who is so fancy, esoterica saves the day?Who is the Yogi, Namaste?”

“Once, I took the penny whistle you gave me and discovered a spotby the roaring falls where I could play as loud as I wanted. I lay in the bifurcated trunkof a low-slung birch tree. The sun peeked t...”

“And no matter what closet we were thrown in, up what river we were sold for an embarrassment, or worse, traded for a bottle of gin--wed carry on in playful stitches, friendstil the endwhich came so...”

“If in poetry court she was calledto testify on matters whereI was condemned to imprisonment: parking my egoat a broken meter, line violations, forced rhyme,dealing stanzaics to children, shootingof...”

“what if there was an uncanny moment when all the birds were grounded from Cape Town to Juneau, and everywhere between--all feathers frozen in a universal stutter, so quick as to make a snail of lig...”

“Theres a pressure at all hours of the day only a poem can assuage.”

“A nation discovers its truest dignity when it cherishes the dignity of those from whom it has not heard for a very long time.”

“I pray for my mother. That if she can't ever recover what she's lost or what she's losing, that she not feel like she's lost. I pray that we make her feel necessary and valued as long as possible. ...”

“Dementia: Is it more painful to forget, or to be forgotten?”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”