pumi

“I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I've lived longing
for your every look ever since.
The longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body wanes.
That longing will outlive this body

I loved you before I as born.
It makes no sense, I know.

Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I've been lonely for you from that instant.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“Why he's a poet, you know, so he may live upon learning.”
― Frances Burney, Evelina

“The name Cleopatra wakens the world to life.”
― Carmen Boullosa, Cleopatra Dismounts

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum