I Didn't Have Time To Sit Down

Maybe We Can Use A Metaphor For It, Out Of Dance. I Think For Many Years I Was Aware Of The Need, In Dance And In Life, To Breathe Deeply And To Take In More Air Than We Usually Take In.

... Sometimes I Can Feel It, The Way We Are Pouring Slowly Toward A Curve And Around It Through Something Dark And Soft, And We Are Bound To Each Other.

I Have Never Thought I Could Take It, Not Even For The Children. It Is All I Have Wanted To Do, To Stand Between Them And And Pain. But I Come From A Long Line Of Women Who Put Themselves First.

Every Poet I Know - Although There May Be Some I Don't Know Who Lead Very Different Lives, Who Maybe Live In The Country And Don't Teach - Tends To Be Just Like The Rest Of Us: Just Really Busy, Really Overcommitted.

I'm Not Asking A Poem To Carry A Lot Of Rocks In Its Pockets. Just Being An Ordinary Observer And Liver And Feeler And Letting The Experience Get Through You Onto The Notebook With The Pen, Through The Arm, Out Of The Body, Onto The Page, Without Distortion.