In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of death, the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring and howling, howling.... ("Seeing For a Moment")

Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appears, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds - the invisible shared out in endless abundance.

An absolute_x000D_ patience._x000D_ Trees stand_x000D_ up to their knees in_x000D_ fog. The fog_x000D_ slowly flows_x000D_ uphill._x000D_ White_x000D_ cobwebs, the grass _x000D_ leaning where deer _x000D_ have looked for apples._x000D_ The woods_x000D_ from brook to where_x000D_ the top of the hill looks_x000D_ over the fog, send up_x000D_ not one bird._x000D_ So absolute, it is_x000D_ no other than_x000D_ happiness itself, a breathing_x000D_ too quiet to hear.

Peace as a positive condition of society, not merely as an interim between wars, is something so unknown that it casts no images on the mind's screen.