I write to bring others peacefulness and joy, to stand them on a prairie hillcrest watching wind ripple ripening wheatfields as far as the eye can see, like an ocean, wave after wave of golden grain, its bronzed hues dancing and playing in the sunlight swaying, first this way, then that, without reason other than to be.
I write to lead the shut-in, the less fortunate onto a mountain ridge watching as wind rustles an endless stand of green treetops, catching a glimpse of the forest as one tree, a network of life with the illusion of separateness, whose roots are forever intertwined in life giving unity.
I write to transport you to a continental divide where together we view the march of seemingly eternal snow-covered mountaintops or to stand stock-still in a quiet desert listening to life under a starry moonless night.
This is why I write.
The first poetry is always written against the wind by sailors and farmers who sing with the wind in their teeth.
The second poetry is written by scholars and students, wine drinkers who [have] learned to know a good thing.
The third poetry is sometimes never written; but when it is, it is written by those who have brought nature and art together into one thing.”
— Walter Anderson