“A child screams with joy and a child screams with pain, and the difference is in the timbre of that scream. Decibels of joy strike the inner ear differently from those of pain.”
― Children of Paradise
― Children of Paradise
“One Parting
Why did he write to her,
"I can't live without you"?
And why did she write to him,
"I can't live without you"?
For he went west, she went east,
And they both lived.”
― Honey And Salt: Seventy-Seven American Poems on Life, Love, Death, and Nature
Why did he write to her,
"I can't live without you"?
And why did she write to him,
"I can't live without you"?
For he went west, she went east,
And they both lived.”
― Honey And Salt: Seventy-Seven American Poems on Life, Love, Death, and Nature
“WHAT THE LIVING DO
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you. ”
― What the Living Do: Poems
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you. ”
― What the Living Do: Poems
“Books were safer than other people anyway.”
― The Ocean at the End of the Lane
― The Ocean at the End of the Lane
“Even If I Don’t See it Again
Even if I don’t see it again.–nor ever feel it
I know it is–and that if once it hailed me
it ever does–
and so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn’t.–I was blinded like that–and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I’d die
from being loved like that.”
―
Even if I don’t see it again.–nor ever feel it
I know it is–and that if once it hailed me
it ever does–
and so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn’t.–I was blinded like that–and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I’d die
from being loved like that.”
―
Luna’s 2025 Year in Books
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