Susan Stewart Quotes

“How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people,
and that the steeples and minarets canopied,
and that the stone saints guarded
where the flute was heard in the dawn-light
and the cradle song lowed at dusk,
and the marketplace full of made things,
the first fruits bending the tables
and the pledges and signatures of honor,
honored—how is she become tributary
and her people bounded by gates.
She weepeth sore in the night
and the tears are on her cheeks;
her face is shrouded in fear and
all her beauty is departed.
The guilds and the clans are gone,
gone the pity of the nurses and
teachers. The scavenger dogs
roam the fallow gardens and
run without strength
before their pursuers. How the walls
are stained with a brother's blood
and the night brings sickness to the longing.”
― Anonymous

“The scribes have cast the blame
upon a woman, writing her filthiness
is in her skirts and the elders have gathered
in judgement under plane trees,
and the virgin is trodden as in a wine-press,
(how the crowd cries out against
the menstruous woman, and the handmaiden,
and the crone, and they are hooded
with the cloud of anger
and pulled into the waiting wagons)
And the mothers of the warriors
are crowned with laurel and the fathers
of the singers are shamed in the square
and the signs are marked upon the doorposts
and the scaffolding built at the edge
of the fairground. Who will teach
the stitches and patterns? And who will
remember the spells of the clover?
And who will know the harmonies of
number, the names and accounts of the stars?
What thing shall I take to witness for thee?
What thing shall I liken unto thee?”
― Anonymous

“I have been brought into darkness
surely against me he has turned
he hath set me in dark places
he hath hedged me about
that I cannot get out
he hath made my chain heavy
he hath closed my ways with stone
he was like a bear lying in wait
he hath pulled me to pieces
and made me desolate
that I cannot get out
he hath filled my teeth with dust
and covered me with ashes
I cried out to my rescuers
and they did not hear me,
I turned away, and still
I was hedged about,
the daylight was taken
and the blanket was taken
and the rope and all
my childish things,
I cried out with my throat
and my in-my-heart
and my Lord's Prayer and
my now I lay me down
to sleep, and my health
and my hands, and my
show me myself and my
secrets-and-all-my-sins
forgiven and I counted
the ones I knew and the ones
I dreamed and I measured
the shadow cast by the mirror,
but the sun was remote and
cold to me. I turned away,
and still I was hedged about
and anointed in fire
and ashes. I saw
the blue sheen
of the world through
the darkness, and the crust,
and the stain of another,
I touched my hair to my mouth,
and my arms to my legs,
and my mouth to my knee.
I smelled the animal sweetness
and the dampness of leaves
beyond the wall; I heard
the murmurs of my mothers
and my brother, alone in his
whimpering, and I heard the strangers
whisper. But when I cried they did not
hear me, and when I sang
they did not know my song,
and when I spoke, they did
not acknowledge me, and when I left
they did not seek me out
along the cisterns and
streets of the city.
Mercy is new in the morning
they said, and our god
will not stand for such
suffering—oh god of mercy
and golden light.”
― Anonymous