“‘Whoever shall be guided so far towards the mysteries of love, by contemplating beautiful things rightly in due order, is approaching the last grade. Suddenly he will behold a beauty marvellous in its nature, that very Beauty, Socrates, for the sake of which all the earlier hardships had been borne: in the first place, everlasting, and never being

But I will not give them the kiss of complicity. I will not give them the responsibility for my life.

believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed. As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail; it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold, in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture,

the usual half-miracles begin within my own personal body as the light enters the gates of the east and climbs into the fields of the sky, and the birds lift their very unimportant heads from the branches and begin to sing;

MYSTERIES, YES Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the

what a river can be—a friend, a companion, a hint of heaven.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

PRAYER May I never not be frisky, May I never not be risqué. May my ashes, when you have them, friend, and give them to the ocean, leap in the froth of the waves, still loving movement, still ready, beyond all else, to dance for the world.