In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things. - Theodore Roethke

There's an element of desperation in the insistence of the graduate student's respect for knowledge — as opposed to wisdom. (p. 95)

A terrible violence of creation, A flash into the burning heart of the abominable; Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant, The burning lake turns into a forest pool, The fire subsides into rings of water, A sunlit silence.

All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree:
The pure serene of memory in one man, –
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.