“‎I was satisfied with haiku until I met you, jar of octopus, cuckoo’s cry, 5-7-5, but now I want a russian novel, a 50-page description of you sleeping, another 75 of what you think staring at your window.”

“When it comes, you’ll be dreamingthat you don’t need to breathe;that breathless silence isthe music of the darkand it’s part of the rhythmto vanish like a spark.”

“What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,That my songs do not show me at all?For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,I am an answer, they are only a call”

“Spend all you have for loveliness,Buy it and never count the cost;For one white singing hour of peaceCount many a year of strife well lost,And for a breath of ecstasyGive all you have been, or could be.”

“By the craggy hill-side,Through the mosses bare,They have planted thorn-treesFor pleasure here and there.If any man so daringAs dig them up in spite,He shall find their sharpest thornsIn his bed at night.”

“O, how this spring of love resemblethThe uncertain glory of an April day,Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,And by and by a cloud takes all away!”

“The business of love is cruelty which,by our wills, we transform to live together.”

“Some PeopleSome people flee some other people. In some country under a sun and some clouds. They abandon something close to all they’ve got, sown fields, some chickens, dogs, mirrors in which fire now preens. Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles. The emptier they get, the heavier they grow. What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion. What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away, someone tries to shake a limp child back to life. Always another wrong road ahead of them, always another wrong bridge across an oddly reddish river. Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away, above them a plane seems to circle.Some invisibility would come in handy, some grayish stoniness, or, better yet, some nonexistence for a shorter or a longer while. Something else will happen, only where and what. Someone will come at them, only when and who, in how many shapes, with what intentions. If he has a choice, maybe he won’t be the enemy and will leave them to some sort of life.”

“I wanted to write some words you’d remember.Words so alert they’d leap from the paper,crawl up your shoulder, lie by your ears,and purr themselves to you like baby kittens,but it was rainy, so I laid there and daydreamed about you.”

“There have been times I’ve felt so much art in my soul I grew sick of artists.”

“what if I fall? oh, my darling, but if you fly?”

“Let your love flow where the beautiful things are and something beautiful will always come your way.”

“I have no riches but my thoughts, Yet these are wealth enough for me”

“My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have HisNone ever was in love with me but grief.She wooed me from the day that I was born;She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,And left me there forlorn.The birds that in my garden would have sung,She scared away with her unending moan;She slew my lovers too when I was young,And left me there alone.Grief, I have cursed thee often—now at lastTo hate thy name I am no longer free;Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,I love no love but thee.”

“I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has.”