It Is Always Hard To Hear The

How Unnatural The Imposed View, Imposed By A Puritanical Ethos, That Passionate Love Belongs Only To The Young, That People Are Dead From The Neck Down By The Time They Are Forty, And That Any Deep Feeling, Any Passion After That Age, Is Either Ludicrous Or Revolting!

When I Am Working I Immediately Feel Hopeful.

Gardening Is One Of The Rewards Of Middle Age, When One Is Ready For An Impersonal Passion, A Passion That Demands Patience, Acute Awareness Of A World Outside Oneself, And The Power To Keep On Growing Through All The Times Of Drought, Through The Cold Snows, Towards Those Moments Of Pure Joy When All Failures Are Forgotten And The Plum Tree Flowers.

Poetry Is First Of All A Way Of Life And Only Secondarily A Way Of Writing.

Why Should It Happen That Among The Great Many Women Whom I See And Am Fond Of, Suddenly Somebody I Meet For Half An Hour Opens The Door Into Poetry?