Machado

A quote from the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, which speaks, eloquently, I think, to what it is to be a poet, and how easy it to lose one's creative voice:

"When the poet doubts that the center of the universe lies in his own heart, that his spirit is an overflowing fountain, a focus which irradiates energy, capable of transforming and even deforming the world around him, then the spirit of the poet wanders disoriented again among objects."

I first became aware of Machado's quote through a very interesting book called Poetry As Survival, by Gregory Orr. I'll write more about that book later.