We did not know she was sick, but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside of her body.

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter, and in which to feel.

Language is rich, and malleable. It is a living, vibrant material, and every part of a poem works in conjunction with every other part - the content, the place, the diction, the rhythm, the tone-as well as the very sliding, floating, thumping, rapping sounds of it.