(Asked of four student poets at the Illinois Schools for the Deaf and Visually Impaired) Fire: because it is quick, and can destroy. Music: place where anger has its place. Romantic Love—the cold or stupid ask why. Sign: that it is a language, full of grace, That it is visible, invisible, dark and clear, That it is loud and noiseless and is contained Inside a body and explodes in air Out of a body to conquer from the mind. |
from THE FIGURED WHEEL, NEW & COLLECTED POEMS, 1966-1996,
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996)