James Wright Quotes

Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms. All flawless hexagons may melt and break; While you must feel the summer's rage of fire, Beyond this frigid season's empty storms. Banished to bloom, and bear the birds' desire.
James Wright
And now it is said of meThat my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none;That I twisted the twig in my handsAnd cut the blossom free too soon from the seed;That I lay across the fire,And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain.But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me,Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again.I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it.I will not banish love to empty rain.For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sakeWho sow the world with child.I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices.But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the namesOf sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body,And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice;Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air:Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.
James Wright
But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the names Of sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body, And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice; Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air: Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.
James Wright
In a pine tree,A few yards away from my window sill,A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,On a branch.I laugh, as I see him abandon himselfTo entire delight, for he knows as well as I doThat the branch will not break.
James Wright
The JewelThere is this caveIn the air behind my bodyThat nobody is going to touch:A cloister, a silenceClosing around a blossom of fire.When I stand upright in the wind,My bones turn to dark emeralds.
James Wright