No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain. ― Mark Strand, Blizzard of One (Knopf, February 8, 2000)
Black Sea One clear night while the others slept, I climbedthe stairs to the roof of the house and under a skystrewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becominglike bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long,whispering… Continue reading Mark Strand
I would go out under the stars and enter the smallness of being that was mine, and I would disappear into the emptiness within, and it seemed enormous. – Mark Strand, from “Wooley,” Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories (Ecco, 1994)
And if it happens that you cannotgo on or turn back and you find yourselfwhere you will be at the end,tell yourselfin that final flowing of cold through your limbsthat you love what you are. — Mark Strand, from “Lines for Winter,” Selected Poems. (Knopf September 26, 1990)
I would go out under the stars and enter the smallness of being that was mine, and I would disappear into the emptiness within, and it seemed enormous. – Mark Strand, from “Wooley,” Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories (Ecco, 1994)
I walkinto what lightthere is — Mark Strand, from “Another Place,” Collected Poems (Knopf Doubleday, 2014)
Even this late it happensthe coming of love, the coming of light.You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,sending up warm bouquets of air.Even this late the bones of the body shineand tomorrow’s dust flares into breath. ― Mark Strand, “The Coming of Light,” The Late Hour.… Continue reading Mark Strand
Comes down from the mountain the cream-colored horse, comes across dun fields and steps lightly into the house, and stands in the bright living room cloud-like and silent. And now, without warning, the gray arm of the wind takes him away. “I loved that horse,” thought the poet. “I could have loved anything, but I… Continue reading Mark Strand
x [I]t was the wayThe ruined moonlight fell across her hair,It was that, and it was more. — Mark Strand, from section II of “What It Was,” Blizzard of One: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998)
I myself have started to feel the onset of something, a sadness perhaps, the dawn of a new season, and existence even. But enough of this. Tell me about yourself and what it is like where you are. Do the leaves ever stop falling? Are the shadows ever anything but long? — Mark Strand, from… Continue reading Mark Strand
The Vale of Soul-Making 