The American Poetry Review has a conversation with Stanley Kunitz and Genine Lentine in the May/June issue. I thought I would offer some tid-bits from that in his memory and as inspiration for us all.
Stanley Kunitz:
One of the great satisfactions of the human spirit is to feel that one's family extends across the borders of the species and belongs to everything that lives. And one has the same feeling about flowers and plants in general, and shrubs and trees, that they all belong to your family. That makes one feel more kindred than if you're isolated in your species.
I don't think language is the only means of communication. The warmth of one's body is a form of communication. The stroke of one's hand is a means of communication.
I have a tendency when I'm walking in the garden to brush the flowers as I go by them, and I get a sense of reciprocity that is very comforting, consoling.
I think there are forms of communication beyond language, that have to do not only with the body, but with the spirit itself, and they're so internal, there's no way you can define them. It's a permeation of one's being.
Weather is a form of communication, I feel. There is an exchange between the self and the atmosphere, the whole atmosphere.
Even now, in the middle of the night, if I wake, as I often do, I hear the night. I hear the sound of the night, which is not street noises, or any other, but there's a sound that seems to emanate from the movement of the spheres and I actually can hear it and I keep wondering "where is it coming from?" and then I realize it's not coming from anywhere. It's coming from me.
And now Stanley Kunitz is shared with us of all throughout the earth and sky, body, mind, and soul.
