For a while, what with all this moving and settling I was becoming frantic, schizophrenic, and even, perhaps, necrophilic, combined with anguish, frustration and ill-temper. But, finally getting into the book-work again, I find I work awfully slowly. There is so much that has been written, by people so much more professional than I, that I…
But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.-Mary Oliver ("The Journey") Given…
...If I had another lifeI would want to spend it all/on some unstinting happiness.I would be a fox, or a treefull of waving branches.I wouldn't mind being a rosein a field of roses.Fear has not yet occurred to them,/nor ambition.Reason they have not yet thought of.Neither do they ask how long they/must be roses, and…
After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.-Mary Oliver ("May")It doesn't really bother me, but I think I worry too much. Or maybe what I really mean is that I think too much. At different moments throughout the day, the following thoughts float through my mind: how…
Those of you who may catch the odd whisper, the odd squeak, so easily mistake my words for breezes rustling the dry reeds...But I've always been of a determined nature. Patient, they used to call me. I like to see a thing through to the end. -Margaret Atwood (The Penelopiad) Happy New Year, dear readers!…
To sing this small but remarkable thing, one had absolutely--yes, absolutely--to have a full, genuine inspiration, a genuine passion or its full poetic assimilation. Otherwise the romance would not only fail altogether, but might even appear outrageous and all but something shameless: it would be impossible to show such intensity of passionate feeling without provoking…
Dining with Dostoevsky 