Stacey

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass

“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
― John Muir

“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
― Mary Oliver

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
― John Muir