If you will think of yourself as coming out of the earth,

Recently I stumbled upon a speech, “Visions of Peace through Literature,” that I delivered to the Upper Midwest Regional IRA Conference in 1992 and that was then published in the winter 1994 edition of The ALAN Review.

…into the unknowable, uncomfortable

When my children were young, we read and read and read.

Only what you have given is salvaged

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something.

The question was inevitable.

When I used to go into schools, I always started programs with my young readers by telling stories drawn from my childhood. Stories about the way the experiences, the challenges, the feelings from that time formed the foundation of my novels.

One of the great surprises is that humans come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing

In the name of the daybreak

and the eyelids of morning

We are running

Learned [ones]

of the twentieth century, armed with large

finite numbers and radiotelescopes

Understanding is …

The earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock.

Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them.

Don't surrender your loneliness

So quickly.

From an everyday standpoint, the fact that life is finite feels like a terrible insult… There you were, planning to live on forever… but now here comes mortality, to steal away the life that was rightfully yours.

In the name of the daybreak

and the eyelids of morning

and the wayfaring moon

It’s been months since I’ve appeared in this space. Mostly because I find myself with little I’m burning to say.

But today I burn.

We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies.

[Since childhood] we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there.