To believe in the soul – to believe in it exactly as much and as hardily as one believes in a mountain, say, or a fingernail, which is ever in view – imagine the consequences! How far-reaching, and thoroughly wonderful! For everything, by such a belief, would be charged, and changed. You wake in the morning, the soul exists, your mouth sings it, your mind accepts it. And the perceived, tactile world is, upon the instant, only half the world!
I suppose they, those lives soaked in evil, are miserable and so they ever despise happiness. I suppose they feel powerless and therefore must exert power wherever they can, which is so often upon those unable to comprehend what is happening, much less defend themselves.
No, I’d never been to this country before. No, I didn’t know where the roads would lead me. No, I didn’t intend to turn back.
Song of the Builders On a summer morning I sat down on a hillside to think about God – a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket; it was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe.
Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame.
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? While the soul, after all, is only a window, and the opening of the window no more difficult than the wakening from a little sleep.
What we must do, I suppose, is to hope the world keeps its balance; what we are to do, however, with our hearts waiting and watching-truly I do not know.
Okay, I said. But remember, you can’t fix everything in the world for everybody. “However,” said Ricky, “you can’t do anything at all unless you begin.
Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them Did not board ship with grief among their maps?
Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
I’m older than I used to be, and therefore I understand things nobody would think of who’s young and in a hurry.
If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.
When I woke the morning light was just slipping in front of the stars and I was covered with blossoms.
Be what you are, of the earth, but a dreamer too.
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace?
One learns thinking about writing, and by talking about writing – but primarily through writing.
Especially when writers are just starting out, the emphasis should be not only upon what they write, but equally upon the process of writing. A successful class is a class where no one feels that ‘writer’s block’ is a high-priority subject.
A poem on the page speaks to the listening mind.
About God, how could he give up his secrets and still be God?
For the birds who own nothing – the reason they can fly.