“Each time I understood a poem better, I made some decision in my own life that I understood better than before—because poems showed me unvarnished states of human emotion that I could examine. And after many decades, I realized that art was the healthiest part of my life, and if I could make mature decisions in life the way I made them in art, with the concentration, focus, and balanced energy of poetry, then I would be leading a life I admired.”
—Molly Peacock, How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle
One Heart
Look at the birds. Even flying
is born
out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open
at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
—Li-Young Lee, from Book of My Nights