This is what I want a book of poems and paintings to be-a surprising spring waking us from our daily sleep. A feast of little dishes. An unexpected w… - Naomi Shihab Nye

"I would like to go to school with the donkeys in the field. To stand all day in the free air with an open mouth. No bells ringing." (p75)

We always heard when we were little that to read a poem we needed to read it slowly and we needed to read it more than once and to write a poem you had to pay close attention, write it slowly. And I think we have to live that way. We really do. There's a Thai proverb Life is so short, we must move very slowly. And I think that the word busy-ness finally just has to go. Busy-ness has to go.

I've always thought of song writing and poem writing as cousins.