They said: okay, it’s true, time is nothing to him, that which passes, that which flies, all that is nothing to him, doesn’t slip past or cause adherences or brackish fog – and is it precisely because we are alone in time, alone and losing at every turn, noses buried in our losses, in the… Continue reading Maylis de Kerangal
Tune to the frequency of the wood and you’ll hearthe deer, breathing; a muscle, tensing; the sighof a field mouse under an owl. Now listen to yourself — that friction — the push-and-drag,the double pulse, the drum. You can hear it, clearly.You can hear the sound of your body, breaking down. If you’re very quiet,… Continue reading Robin Robertson
A writer cannot really grasp what he has written. It is not like a building or a sculpture; it cannot be seen whole. It is only a kind of smoke seized and printed on a page. — James Salter, Burning the Days: Recollection (Knopf Doubleday, 2011)
Freeze Frame, with Forsynthia You will bind mein my aquarelle, my skinblue as Canterbury bells. Call memademoiselle before you execute, like the hand-tinted photo of the dancer, Margarete Gertrude Zelle, armsscissoring the air, fending bullets and flowers as she pirouettes. You will find mein the zero hour sippinga whiskey sour with a cherry, my hairyellow,… Continue reading Simone Muench
this thing that made me crazy; the way he cupped his fingers around the back of my neck, putting them just so that his thumb touched a pulse point. It’s so hard to explain, but it gave me a chill every time, almost like he was touching my heart. — Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby. (Viking… Continue reading Sarah Dessen
Lightly, lightly, very lightly,A wind passes very lightlyAnd goes away, always very lightly.And I don’t know what I thinkAnd I don’t want to know. — Fernando Pessoa, “The Keeper of the Flocks XIII,” The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro. (Shearsman Books October 1, 2007) Originally published September 20th 1957.
I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me. — Nikos Kazantzakis, from “The Preparation : Second Duty,” The Saviors of God. (Simon & Schuster March 15, 1960) Originally published January 1st 1901.
Always to live among words, whether one wants to or not,always to be alive, full of words about life,as if words were alive, as if life meant words. But it’s otherwise, believe me.Between a word and a thingyou only encounter yourself,lying between each as if next to someone ill,never able to get to either,tasting a… Continue reading Ingeborg Bachmann
When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. — Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book… Continue reading Sogyal Rinpoche
In the right-hand pocket of my former lifeI’ve left something for you.That is, darling, your turn will come.I’d walk out on myself if I could.I love the distant glow in the nighttime desert skylike a worn yellow spot in the darkeverything might still slip through. — Charlie Smith, from section 1 “Outside Las Vegas,” of… Continue reading Charlie Smith
The Vale of Soul-Making 