Where joy in an old pencil is not absurd.

Where music thundered let the mind be still,Where the will triumphed let there be no will,What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.

I can tell you that solitudeIs not all exaltation, inner spaceWhere the soul breaths and work can be done.Solitude exposes the nerve,Raises up ghosts.The past, never at rest, flows through it.

But tears are an indulgence. Memory sings.

And now we who are writing women and strange monstersStill search our hearts to find the difficult answers,Still hope that we may learn to lay our handsMore gently and more subtly on the burning sands.

It is time I came back to my real lifeAfter this voyage to an island with no name,Where I lay down at sunrise drunk with light.

There are some griefs so loudThey could bring down the sky,And there are griefs so stillNone knows how deep they lie,Endured, never expended.There are old griefs so proudThey never speak a word;They never can be mended.And these nourish the willAnd keep it iron-hard.

I know that I myself have felt that prickling of the scalp that Emily Dickinson tells us is the sign of recognition before a true poem.

I too have known the inward disturbance of exile,The great peril of being at home nowhere,The dispersed center, the dividing love;Not here, nor there, leaping across ocean, Turning, returning to each strong allegiance;American, but with this difference - parting.