Joan Didion
I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose. ― Joan Didion, Where I Was From. (Knopf Sep 2003)
Month: January 2016
Richard Jackson
Sonata for Love’s History Before I could arrive at this moment when the earth wakes inside you, when the night is still tangled in your hair, before I could see how the moonlight melts on your breasts as you lay beside me, before you opened the hands of your soul, at this moment that is… Continue reading Richard Jackson
Jorge Luis Borges
We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead;… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
Louise Glück
Were you like me once, long ago, before you were human? Did you permit yourselves to open once, who would never open again? Because in truth I am speaking now the way you do. I speak because I am shattered. Louise Glück, from “The Red Poppy,” The Wild Iris. (The Ecco Press 1992)
Vladimir Nabokov
Here is Virgil who could the nymphet sing in a single tone, but probably preferred a lad’s perineum. Here are two of King Akhenaton’s and Queen Nefertiti’s pre-nubile Nile daughters (that royal couple had a litter of six), wearing nothing but many necklaces of bright beads, relaxed on cushions, intact after three thousand years, with… Continue reading Vladimir Nabokov
Hāfez
Lovers Don’t tell all of their Secrets. They might Count each other’s moles That reside in the shy Regions, Then keep that tally strictly To themselves. — Hāfez
Dean Koontz
The human species was too fond of lying, cheating, envy, ignorance, self-pity, self-righteousness, and utopian visions that always led to mass murder–but until and if it destroyed itself, it harbored the potential to become nobler, to take responsibility for its actions, to live and let live, and to earn the stewardship of the earth.— Dean… Continue reading Dean Koontz
Anna Akhmatova
The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again… — Anna Akhmatova, from “Requiem.” Originally written between… Continue reading Anna Akhmatova
Kate Chopin
For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to… Continue reading Kate Chopin
Vicente Aleixandre
Enough. There’s no kiss after life, but I can feel you. Your finished lips hinted that I’m alive. Or I’m the one calling you. To place my lips on the idea of you is to feel you as a proclamation. o yes, you exist, terribly. I’m the finished one, who spoke your name, like a… Continue reading Vicente Aleixandre
The Vale of Soul-Making 