It is not our job to remain whole.We came to lose our leavesLike the trees, and be born again,Drawing up from the great roots.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.

I have daughters and I have sons.When one of them lays a handOn my shoulder, shining fishTurn suddenly in the deep sea.

The human face shines as it speaks of thingsNear itself, thoughts full of dreams.The human face shines like a dark skyAs it speaks of those things that oppress the living

We have never understood how birds manage to fly,Nor who the genius is who makes up dreams,Now how heaven and earth can appear in a poem.

It's all right if people think we are idiots.It's all right if we lie face down on the earth.It's all right if we open the coffin and climb in.

Finding the FatherMy friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing– as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; it smashes up the boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow around the sides.Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to go with him through the blowing and rainy streets, to the dark house.We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered out in a snowstorm the night we were born, and who then lost his memory, and has lived since longing for his child, whom he saw only once… while he worked as a shoemaker, as a cattle herder in Australia, as a restaurant cook who painted at night.When you light the lamp you will see him. He sits there behind the door… the eyebrows so heavy, the forehead so light… lonely in his whole body, waiting for you.

It’s good if you can accept your life—you’ll noticeYour face has become deranged trying to adjustTo it. Your face thought your life would lookLike your bedroom mirror when you were ten.That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.Even your parents can’t believe how much you’vechanged.