Oliver Patrick

“To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“In the deep and stormy night,

Ahead lies a barren wilderness.

Once past the barren wilderness,

There lies the path of the people.

Ah! In the darkness, countless paths —

How should I tread correctly?

God! Quickly, give me some light,

Let me run forward!

God quickly replies, Light?

I have none to find for you.

You want light?

You must create it yourself!”
― Zhu Ziqing 朱自清

“One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“it is not
as if
bones speak in the
tongue of manuals
or
as if
every testament
is written
in the bible

for what would this life
be, if
at last
we could name our desires
hear the chorus of the disappeared

indeed, what would this life
be, if
the dead
were no longer
entrusted
to
commissioned truths,
the angel of history
learned to
sing
her sad song
in K’iche’

would history revel in an impossible forgiveness
commemorate only the wretched
salute all the wrong soldiers

or would it
conjure memory’s wrath
open wide
the earth’s jowls and
swallow whole
these
forsaken barracks
—leaving in its wake
a thousand and one monja blancas

a tombstone that reads: k’ixibal”
― Eric Morales-Franceschini