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“My mother, sleeping.
Curled up like a spring fern
although she’s almost a century.
She’s dreaming, however.
I can tell by the way she’s frowning,
and her strong breathing.
Maybe she’s making her way
down one more white river,
or walking across the ice.
There are no more adventures for her
in the upper air, in this room
with her bed and the family pictures.
Let’s go out and fight the storm,
she used to say. So maybe
she’s fighting it.”
― Dearly: Poems
Curled up like a spring fern
although she’s almost a century.
She’s dreaming, however.
I can tell by the way she’s frowning,
and her strong breathing.
Maybe she’s making her way
down one more white river,
or walking across the ice.
There are no more adventures for her
in the upper air, in this room
with her bed and the family pictures.
Let’s go out and fight the storm,
she used to say. So maybe
she’s fighting it.”
― Dearly: Poems
“It's not a matter whether they permit it or not. It's what I am.”
― Convenience Store Woman
― Convenience Store Woman
“But Yukari was right I thought. After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.”
― Convenience Store Woman
― Convenience Store Woman
“Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.”
― West-Running Brook
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.”
― West-Running Brook
“A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs, and I believe that the subtleties of feeling began to disappear until finally I was on a pleasure-pain basis. Then it occurred to me that the delicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. Can its reverse be true- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words? ... Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.”
― Travels with Charley: In Search of America
― Travels with Charley: In Search of America
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Melty’s 2025 Year in Books
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