The dog has cleaned his bowl and his reward is a biscuit, which I put in his mouth like a priest offering the host. I can't bear that trusting face! He asks for bread, expects bread, and I in my power might have given him a stone.

In order to settle my appetite I’ll have the chocolate chip In order to stomach the cookie I’ll need to make some tea In order to have the tea I’ll put the kettle on and wait for the cooker to do its job In order to have the tea I’ll need to clear the teapot In order...

And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it by too much contact with the world, by too much activity and talk. Try not to degrade it by dragging it along, taking it around and exposing it so often to the daily...

The last wolf hurried toward me through the ruined city and I heard his baying echoes down the steep smashed warrens of Montgomery Street and past the ruby-crowned highrises left standing their lighted elevators useless Passing the flicking red and green of traffic...

On gray forgetful mornings like this sea turtles would gather in the shallow waters of the Gulf to discuss issues of self-presentation and related concerns like, If there were a God would he have a hard shell and a retractable head, and whether speed on land was of...

Try to love everything that gets in your way: the Chinese women in flowered bathing caps murmuring together in Mandarin, doing leg exercises in your lane while you execute thirty-six furious laps, one for every item on your to-do list. The heavy-bellied man who goes...

Speak gently to the herring and kindly to the calf, Be blithesome with the bunny, at barnacles don’t laugh! Give nuts unto the monkey, and buns unto the bear, Ne’er hint at currant jelly if you chance to see a hare! Oh, little girls, pray hide your combs when...

To Help the Monkey Cross the River, which he must cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts, to help him I sit with my rifle on a platform high in a tree, same side of the river as the hungry monkey. How does this assist him? When he swims for it I look first upriver:...

Each time I see the Upside-Down Man Standing in the water, I look at him and start to laugh, Although I shouldn't oughtter. For maybe in another world Another time Another town, Maybe HE is right side up And I am upside down.

This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two...

The pressure of the moment can cause someone to kill someone or something The leniency of consideration might treat with more kindness Which is to be desired. Or at least often to be desired. But if my house is on fire and you notice, I wish you would kill That fire....