“In a poem there is always the chance of finding yourself afloat suddenly in a mythic river. The surge and sweep of its currents take you into their fold. The river’s vast reach curves across the continents of earth, weaves through the dunes of the passing hours, and you are awake in it. You are an eye in a raw vein of gold, rounded by the waters, lending to them the brief glimmer of yourself in the singular light of the moment. The largeness
of the poem is inextricable from your smallness. As it undulates and folds, you feel the spaces correspond within. This, at least, is the shrine I find in poetry—a quiet that I tend to, a place where I leave wildflowers and light incense and admire the things left by others.”