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“Concerning Some Recent Criticism of His Work

—Glaze and shimmer,
luster and gleam;

can’t he think of anything
but all that sheen?

—No such thing,
the queen said,
as too many sequins.”
― Mark Doty, Sweet Machine

“The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.”
― Rumi

“The Fire

When a human is asked about a particular fire,
she comes close:
then it is too hot,
so she turns her face—

and that’s when the forest of her bearable life appears,
always on the other side of the fire. The fire
she’s been asked to tell the story of,
she has to turn from it, so the story you hear
is that of pines and twitching leaves
and how her body is like neither—

all the while there is a fire
at her back
which she feels in fine detail,
as if the flame were a dremel
and her back its etching glass.

You will not know all about the fire
simply because you asked.
When she speaks of the forest
this is what she is teaching you,

you who thought you were her master.”
― Katie Ford, Blood Lyrics: Poems

“Walking the path, I stop to pick up
bleached bark from a tree, curled into
a scroll of ancient wisdom I am unable to read.

Even in my dreams I’m hiking
these mountain trails expecting to find a rock
that nature has shaped to remind me of a heart.”
― Harryette Mullen, Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary