You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.

... And here am I, budding among the ruins With only sorrow to bite on, As if weeping were a seed and I The earth's only furrow.

I have never thought of my life as divided between poetry and politics.

Political poetry is more profoundly emotional than any other-at least as much as love poetry-and cannot be forced because then it becomes vulgar and unacceptable. It is necessary first to pan though all other poetry in order to become a political poet.

All that is of the earth and the mouth Of man.

Must the poetry of everything vanish Or can my life ever condense it?

The typewriter separated me from a deeper intimacy with poetry, and my hand brought me closer to that intimacy again.