Responding to another poet, I found myself saying “I work very hard to make things look simple.” This aesthetic governs everything I do in every medium, but I think it was instilled into me during the years I studied dance. It isn’t so popular in poetry — or in dance — these days, when conspicuous difficulty is prized above almost everything else. But I am too old to change my ways, and still find my heart singing when a poem sounds completely natural and unforced and yet has resonances and complexities that become increasingly evident upon rereading. After all, there are few lyrics out there that strike the heart as purely as:

Westron wynde when wyll thow blow

the smalle rayne downe can Rayne

Cryst yf my love were in my Armys

And I yn my bed Agayne.