The Geranium When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine— Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she’d lived… Continue reading Theodore Roethke
Because you love so much; / because you never smile; because your heart / must always ache so much. — César Vallejo, The Black Heralds, trans. Clayton Eshleman, The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
Be like the bird, who Halting in his flight On limb too slight Feels it give way beneath him, Yet sings Knowing he hath wings. — Victor Hugo, “The Bird,” Twilight Songs (Les Chants du crépuscule), published in 1835.
Isn’t longing reason enough? — Alexandra Smyth, from “Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Love Me,” Gravel (April 2016)
Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you. Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you. And without feet I can make my way to you, without a mouth I can swear your name. Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you with my heart as with a hand. Stop my heart, and my… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
Black is the most essential of all colors. Above all, if I may say so, it draws its excitement and vitality from deep and secret sources of health…One must admire black. Nothing can debauch it. ― Odilon Redon
But there is no oblivion, no dream: raw flesh. Kisses tie mouths in a tangle of new veins and those who are hurt will hurt without rest and those who are frightened by death will carry it on their shoulders. — Federico Garcia Lorca, from “Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne),” Poet In New York. (Grove… Continue reading Federico Garcia Lorca
Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time. — Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Threatened”, The Book of Sand [El Libro de arena] (1975)
Oh, the land of nights we have never lived: meadows where we were a flicker of movement on the road, something running, running, through the shadow … — Pablo NerudaPablo Neruda, from “Ode to a Sleeping House,” Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda (California Press, 1990)
I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while. — Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. (Knopf; First Edition edition August 29, 2006)
The Vale of Soul-Making 