Quotes by Poets - Page 112

I swearwe'd lose ourhearts ifthey weren'twith elasticand butterflypinclasped safelyin.
Todd Boss
I buried my father in my heart.Now he grows in me, my strange son, my little root who won’t drink milk, little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night, little clock spring newly wetin the fire, little grape, parent to the future wine, a son the fruit of his own son, little father I ransom with my life
Li-Young Lee
Finding the FatherMy friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing– as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; it smashes up the boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow around the sides.Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to go with him through the blowing and rainy streets, to the dark house.We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered out in a snowstorm the night we were born, and who then lost his memory, and has lived since longing for his child, whom he saw only once… while he worked as a shoemaker, as a cattle herder in Australia, as a restaurant cook who painted at night.When you light the lamp you will see him. He sits there behind the door… the eyebrows so heavy, the forehead so light… lonely in his whole body, waiting for you.
Robert Bly
Son: Father, you are my father. You sired me. I have sired no one because I left the primordial. I left you, I studied, I suffered, and my visions were pure. Before me, my father, new horizons were opened.Father: Yes, I am your father. I sired you and nowhere did I go. Where I was in the beginning, there I remained. I dwell in the old home, my estate is as it was. I spawned, I lived with your mother. Then I lived with peasant women and girls, spawning. I surrounded myself with chickens, roosters, turkeys. My poultry lay dozens of eggs a day. But I studied nothing, never did I suffer. My horizons remain the same, oh just the same. These spaces, ancient, veritably Russian, assembled around us are all — all just the same.("Adam")
Andrei Bely
But what of Ham? It didn’t matter if he told anyone about his drunken father or not, if he chided him or tried to dress him, if he lifted his struggling body back into bed, if he took his hand and told him where to place his feet, none of this changed the fact of what he’d seen. It’s possible he opened a door innocently, followed the sound of Noah’s voice cursing God and the sky, possible he didn’t even look, that he turned away before seeing. And it’s likely that Noah hadn’t noticed the door opening, couldn’t have told you who had come in, which son, wouldn’t remember anyway. Apparently it’s God’s call. Ham saw his father drunken and naked, and for this he was cursed, and all of his offspring, and the races that led from these offspring, accursed forever.
Nick Flynn
There were a few other moves of his father's he could do without as well - the sucker punches, the ruffling of the hair, the way of pronouncing the word son, in a slightly deeper voice. This hearty way of talking was getting worse, as if his father were auditioning for the role of Dad, but without much hope.
Margaret Atwood
Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.
Joseph Addison
It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.
Friedrich Schiller
There is always an inertia to be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct – not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.
Thomas Hardy
At last I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am content. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room for such period as you may see fit to remain.I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continued with me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
Herman Melville
In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent.
Don Marquis
One excuse, could destroy a multitude of chances.
Anthony Liccione
I am your opus.
Sylvia Plath
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.
Allen Ginsberg
everything/ that ever was still is, somewhere
Tracy K. Smith
A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.
Criss Jami
When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bright; it isn't like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.
Catherynne M. Valente
As Eternity has reckonedThere's a lifetime in a second
Piet Hein
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you
Pablo Neruda
I want that love that moved the mountains. I want that love that split the ocean. I want that love that made the winds tremble. I want that love that roared like thunder. I want that love that will raise the dead. I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy. I want that love that is the silence of eternity.
Jalaluddin Rumi
The smallest thing by the influence of eternity is made infinite and eternal. We pass through a standing continent or region of ages, that are already ebfore us, glorious and perfect while we come to them. Like men in a ship we pass forward, the shores and marks seeming to go backward, though we move and they stand still. We are not with them in our progressive motion, but prevent the swiftness of our course, and are present with them in our understandings. Like the sun we dart our rays before us, and occupy those spaces with light and contemplation which we move towards, but possess not with our bodies. And seeing all things in the light of Divine knowledge, eternally serving God, rejoice unspeakable in that service, and enjoy it all.
Thomas Traherne
Eternity. Isn't that word terrifying?
Linda Boström Knausgård
We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.Through the unknown, remembered gateWhen the last of earth left to discoverIs that which was the beginning;At the source of the longest riverThe voice of the hidden waterfallAnd the children in the apple-treeNot known, because not looked forBut heard, half-heard, in the stillnessBetween two waves of the sea.Quick now, here, now, always—A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything)And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flames are in-foldedInto the crowned knot of fireAnd the fire and the rose are one.
T.S Eliot
We create eternity out of crumbs of time.
Anna Kamieńska
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.
William Blake
What is Above is Within ... the Circumference is Winthin, Without is formed the Selfish Center, and the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity.
William Blake
Which eternity can be bigger or smaller? But which reality can be an eternity in your mind?
Sorin Cerin
Come with me into the woods where spring isadvancing, as it does, no matter what,not being singular or particular, but oneof the forever gifts, and certainly visible.
Mary Oliver
Good-bye and hello, as always.
Roger Zelazny
The sky's inclemency stirs up the angry winds;the watery clouds are soaking with ceaseless rain.The turbulent Vltava, swollen with rainy waves,Bursting, impetuous, breaks through its river banks.
Elizabeth Jane Weston
Trying to remember old dreams. A voice. Who came in.And meanwhile the rain, all day, all evening,quiet steady sound. Before it grew too darkwatched the blue iris leaning under the rain,the flame of the poppies guttered and went out.A voice. Almost recalled. There have been timesthe gods entered. Entered a room, a cave?A long enclosure where I was, the fourth wall of ittoo distant or too dark to see. The birds are silent,no moths at the lit windows. Only a swaying rosebushpierces the table’s reflection, raindrops gazing from it.There have been hands laid on my shoulders.What has been said to me,how has my life replied?The rain, the rain...
Denise Levertov
APPROACHRain is falling. Winter approaches. I drive towards it. In the slow rain. In the semi-darkness. Cello music is playing in the car. The deep sad sound of the cello. It almost swamps me. Routine endeavours to swamp me. The everyday paying of bills.But I paint men walking in a city of icebergs and crystal. Some of the icebergs are red. I paint a woman swimming in green wavy water. Surrounded by desert mesas. Bright orange in the sunlight. With darker orange for shadows. I paint two people. With purple and pink and yellow and blue circles overlapping the boundaries of their bodies. Dancing.Life is not ordinary. When I see you tonight I will press my lips to your eyelids. Each one in turn. I will rub my fingertips over the skin on the back of your hands and around your wrists. I will sigh. I will growl. I will whinny. I will gallop into your smile. One sharp foot after the other.
Jay Woodman
She isn't here, but aroundhere, in a deep raindisappearing.
Jennifer Clarvoe
RAINI opened my eyesAnd looked up at the rain.And it dripped in my headAnd flowed into my brain,And all that I hear as I lie in my bedIs the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.I step very softly,I walk very slow,I can’t do a handstand-I might overflow,So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said-I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.
Shel Silverstein
When it rains like that, dark in the afternoon, you feel like you've been taken into the past.
Jackie Kay
A person looked at me and said "I can't believe you eat ice cream when it's cold out" "I replied oh that's nothing I drink water also when it rains
Stanley Victor Paskavich
This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly
Thomas Hardy
Before falling to the ground, the rain has touched the sky. (Avant de tomber au sol, La pluie a touché le ciel)
Charles de Leusse
Only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses. Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands.
E.E. Cummings
Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it.
Sarah Kay
When this flood blocks the road I am worried more by my soil getting washed, than by getting late to reach my destination.
Suman Pokhrel
Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rainPossesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.
Alun Lewis
With new hope.We build new lives.Why complain when it rains?This is what it means to be free.
Lawson Fusao Inada
Pour on, I will endure.
William Shakespeare
When rain comes finally, washing away a low sky of muddy ocher, we who could not control the phenomenon are pressed into relief. The near-occult feeling: The face of being witness to the end of the world gives way to tangible things. Even if the succeeding sensations are not common, they are at least not mysterious.
Maya Angelou
The sky, drunk with spring and giddy with its fumes, thickened with clouds. Low clouds, drooping at the edges like felt sailed over the woods and rain leapt from them, warm, smelling of soil and sweat, and washing the last of the black armor-plating of ice from the earth.
Boris Pasternak
a rainy walk through leaves will cure almost anything
John J. Geddes
Rain, hold me in your glassy arms—cover me in wet kisses
John J. Geddes
These were the rains that drove people close to the walls, under the balconies, or sent them dashing madly through the squares, and drenched the fluttering ribbons and bright trappings of the horses so that their flanks were streaked with delicate watercolors. The storms washed the streets so that little streams of brown water went roaring along the gutters toward the sea, and thundered on the roofs of the cafés where people were crowded together laughing in the steam and half darkness. I loved those rains; they were of the sort that is welcomed by everyone, preceded by hot, oppressive hours of stillness; they came the way storms come in the islands but did not last as long, and often the sun came out when they had passed. I was happy whenever the rain caught me walking about in the streets, for then I would rush into the nearest café, along with all the others who were escaping from the weather, all of us crushing laughing through the doors. The rain allowed me to go anywhere, to form quick, casual friendships, forced to share one of the overcrowded tables, among the beaming waiters who pushed good-naturedly through the throngs carrying cups of steaming apple cider.
Sofia Samatar
Misty is the color of rain on a window.
Anne Michaels
The eyelids of the burdened clouds let fall cascadesOf rain, and the parterred garden is spattered with drops.
Abdullah Ibn al-Mu'tazz
Snap your fingerstop the world - rain falls harder
Jack Kerouac
Bloody rain” says Mr ChiversBouncing a basketballOn the one dry patch of courtbloody rain” he nods to our Sports classAnd gives us the afternoon off.Bloody rain all rightAs Annabel and I run to Megalong Creek hutFaster than we ever have in Chivers’s classAnd the exercise we have in mindWe’ve been training for all yearBut I doubt if old ChiversWill give us a medal if he ever finds out.We high jump into the hutAnd strip downClimb under the blanketsAnd cheer the bloody rain As it does a lap or twoAround the mountainWhile Annabel and meEmbrace like winners shouldLike good sports doAs Mr. Chivers sips his third coffeeAnd twitches his bad kneeFrom his playing daysWhile miles awayAnnabel and IScore a convincing victoryAnd for once in our school lifeThe words “Physical Education”Make sense…
Steven Herrick
Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Innocent droplets of rainMake almost all eventstQuite natural.(from "A Rainy Day")
Visar Zhiti
I woke to the sound of rain.
Sylvia Plath
It was a rainy night. It was the myth of a rainy night.
Jack Kerouac
The rain is falling all around,It falls on field and tree,It rains on the umbrellas here,And on the ships at sea.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Rain drops are not the ones who bring the clouds.
Sorin Cerin
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz