Hope Stadler

“If there was a true moment that Tiger Lily fell so in love with Peter she could never turn back, it was that night, when he shivered and walked and told her he was warm, and told her he loved her so much. She was fierce, to be sure, but she had a girl's heart, after all. As she walked home that night, she was shaking from the largeness of it.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“All music is what awakes within us
when we are reminded by the instruments;
It is not the violins or the clarinets -
It is not the beating of the drums -
Nor the score of the baritone singing
his sweet romanza; not that of the men's chorus,
Nor that of the women's chorus -
It is nearer and farther than they”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“And I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually
flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing
means.
And I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s
compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacueg cut
with a burnt
stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be
understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant
my house by
after all.
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten
thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness
I can wait.
My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains
of hell are
with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself.... the latter
I
translate into a new tongue.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you,
To which I sign my name.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass