“A few blossoms float into the room. They drop like frayed yellow ribbons on the gray carpet.”

“Heavy as such things areAfter the wordslide, the writing begins."From "Word Quake”

“to split the very sea into ours and theirs." Border at the BeachAnd More White Sheets”

“pencils racing across paper, a sound I like." Marisol”

“Aw honey. Today's as important as forever." Grandpa Joe in "Shave and a Haircut" Flash Warden and Other Stories”

“Something in the air this morning made me feel like flying. . . "Spring Flight”

“I was happy, but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about i...”

“Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be r...”

“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are goin...”

“Mothers Day is coming up soon. If youre lucky enough to still have your mother, tell her youre grateful to her [] at some point, we must forgive each other for being flawed human beings. Many of us...”

“There is not enough air in the room for Marianne and Elizabeth to share. They have learned this the hard way, but acceptance of the fact has made life easier. Now they see each other twice a year, ...”

“Mom was the midwife who delivered stories to me.”

“At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hea...”

“Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above t...”

“When Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award, she said, 'if there is poetry in my book about the sea it is not because I deliberately put it there but because no one could write truthfully a...”