favorite poems from this collection

• where does the temple begin, where does it end?
  • there are things you can’t reach / but you can reach out to them, and all day long / the wind, the bird flying away. / the idea of god. / and it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.
  • and now i will tell you the truth / everything in the world comes.
• the arrowhead
  • halfway home, past the cut fields,/ the old ghost / stood under the hickories / “i would rather drink the wind,” he said, / “i would rather eat mud and die / than steal as you still steal, / than lie as you still lie.”
• trout lillies
  • all i know is, there was a light that lingered, for hours, / under her eyelids - that made a difference / when she went back to a difficult house, at the end of the day.
• the lover of earth cannot help herself
  • ah, sweet-smelling, / glossy and / colorful world, / i say, / even as i begin to feel / my left eye then the right eye / begin to burn
• logos
  • eat, drink, be happy. / accept the miracle. / accept, too, each spoken word / spoken with love.
• the wren from carolina
  • for his small cup of life / that he drinks from every day, knowing it will refill. / all things are inventions of holiness. / some more rascally than others.
• mindful
  • nor am i talking / about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, / the very extravagant— / but of the ordinary, / the common, the very drab, / the daily presentations.
• song of the builders
  • let us hope / it will always be like this, / each of us going on / in our inexplicable ways / building the universe.