Brené Brown
Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage. ― Brené Brown, Rising Strong. (Spiegel & Grau; 1 edition August 25, 2015)
Category: Canadian-American Culture
Mark Strand
To Himself So you’ve come to me now without knowing why;Nor why you sit in the ruby plush of an ugly chair, the slyRevealing angle of light turning your hair a silver gray;Nor why you have chosen this moment to set the writing of yearsAgainst the writing of nothing; you who narrowed your eyes,Peering into… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
To have loved the way it happens in the empty hours of late afternoon; to lean back and conceive of a journey leaving behind no trace of itself; to look out from the house and see a figure leaning forward as if into the wind although there is no wind; to see the hats of… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
Keeping Things Whole In a fieldI am the absenceof field.This isalways the case.Wherever I amI am what is missing. When I walkI part the airand alwaysthe air moves in to fill the spaceswhere my body’s been. We all have reasonsfor moving.I moveto keep things whole. Mark Strand, Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)
Mark Strand
Lines for Winter for Ros Krauss Tell yourselfas it gets cold and gray falls from the airthat you will go onwalking, hearingthe same tune no matter whereyou find yourself—inside the dome of darkor under the cracking whiteof the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.Tonight as it gets coldtell yourselfwhat you know which is nothingbut… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
The Last Bus It is dark.A slight raindampens the streets.Nothing moves in Lota’s park.The palms hangover the matted grass,and the voluminous bushes, bundled in sheets,billow beside the walks.The world is out of reach.The ghosts of bathers rise slowly out of the surf and turnhigh in the spray.They walk on the beachand their eyes burn like… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
[…] find words for which you yourself have a fondness. If this is difficult, then I suggest you use one word to cover the many. The objects you see from where you sit may be “anything.” “Anything” may be “nothing,” depending on what your feeling is. By all means, use “something” if you agree with… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
And I, tiny being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss. I wheeled with the stars. My heart broke loose with the wind — Mark Strand, from “Pablo Neruda and his passions,” The New Yorker (September 8, 2003)
Mark Strand
And though it was brief, and slight, and nothing To have been held onto so long, I remember it, As if it had come from within, one of the scenes The mind sets for itself, night after night, only To part from, quickly and without warning. — Mark Strand, from “Luminism,” The Continuous Life (Alfred… Continue reading Mark Strand
Mark Strand
Afternoon darkens into evening. A man falls deeper and deeper into the slow spiral of sleep, into the drift of it, the length of it, through what feels like mist, and comes at last to an open door through which he passes without knowing why, then again without knowing why goes to a room where… Continue reading Mark Strand
The Vale of Soul-Making 