Sign in with Facebook
“Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities—something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.”
― Howards End
― Howards End
“—
If love wants you; if you’ve been melted
down to stars, you will love
with lungs and gills, with warm blood
and cold. With feathers and scales.
Under the hot gloom of the forest canopy
you’ll want to breathe with the spiral
calls of birds, while your lashing tail
still gropes for the waes. You’ll try
to haul your weight from simple sea
to gravity of land. Caught by the tide,
in the snail-slip of your own path, for moments
suffocating in both water and air.
If love wants you, suddently your past is
obsolete science. Old maps,
disproved theories, a diorama.
The moment our bodies are set to spring open.
The immanence that reassembles matter
passes through us then disperses
into time and place:
the spasm of fur stroked upright; shocked electrons.
The mother who hears her child crying upstairs
and suddenly feels her dress
wet with milk.
Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog
tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew
before we were loved there,
the places left fallow when we’re born,
waiting for experience to find its way
into us. The night crossing, on deck
in the dark car. On the beach wehre
night reshaped your face.
In the lava fields, carbon turned to carpet,
moss like velvet spread over splintered forms.
The instant spray freezes
in air above the falls, a gasp of ice.
We rise, hearing our names
called home through salmon-blue dusk, the royal moon
an escutcheon on the shield of sky.
The current that passes through us, radio waves,
electric lick. The billions of photons that pass
through film emulsion every second, the single
submicroscopic crystal struck
that becomes the phograph.
We look and suddenly the world
looks back.
A jagged tube of ions pins us to the sky.
—
But if, like starlings, we continue to navigate
by the rear-view mirror
of the moon; if we continue to reach
both for salt and for the sweet white
nibs of grass growing closest to earth;
if, in the autumn bog red with sedge we’re also
driving through the canyon at night,
all around us the hidden glow of limestone
erased by darkness; if still we sish
we’d waited for morning,
we will know ourselves
nowhere.
Not in the mirrors of waves
or in the corrading stream,
not in the wavering
glass of an apartment building,
not in the looming light of night lobbies
or on the rainy deck. Not in the autumn kitchen
or in the motel where we watched meteors
from our bed while your slow film, the shutter open,
turned stars to rain.
We will become
indigestible. Afraid
of choking on fur
and armour, animals
will refuse the divided longings
in our foreing blue flesh.
—
In your hands, all you’ve lost,
all you’ve touched.
In the angle of your head,
every vow and
broken vow. In your skin,
every time you were disregarded,
every time you were received.
Sundered, drowsed. A seeded field,
mossy cleft, tidal pool, milky stem.
The branch that’s released when the bird lifts
or lands. In a summer kitchen.
On a white winter morning, sunlight across the bed.”
―
If love wants you; if you’ve been melted
down to stars, you will love
with lungs and gills, with warm blood
and cold. With feathers and scales.
Under the hot gloom of the forest canopy
you’ll want to breathe with the spiral
calls of birds, while your lashing tail
still gropes for the waes. You’ll try
to haul your weight from simple sea
to gravity of land. Caught by the tide,
in the snail-slip of your own path, for moments
suffocating in both water and air.
If love wants you, suddently your past is
obsolete science. Old maps,
disproved theories, a diorama.
The moment our bodies are set to spring open.
The immanence that reassembles matter
passes through us then disperses
into time and place:
the spasm of fur stroked upright; shocked electrons.
The mother who hears her child crying upstairs
and suddenly feels her dress
wet with milk.
Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog
tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew
before we were loved there,
the places left fallow when we’re born,
waiting for experience to find its way
into us. The night crossing, on deck
in the dark car. On the beach wehre
night reshaped your face.
In the lava fields, carbon turned to carpet,
moss like velvet spread over splintered forms.
The instant spray freezes
in air above the falls, a gasp of ice.
We rise, hearing our names
called home through salmon-blue dusk, the royal moon
an escutcheon on the shield of sky.
The current that passes through us, radio waves,
electric lick. The billions of photons that pass
through film emulsion every second, the single
submicroscopic crystal struck
that becomes the phograph.
We look and suddenly the world
looks back.
A jagged tube of ions pins us to the sky.
—
But if, like starlings, we continue to navigate
by the rear-view mirror
of the moon; if we continue to reach
both for salt and for the sweet white
nibs of grass growing closest to earth;
if, in the autumn bog red with sedge we’re also
driving through the canyon at night,
all around us the hidden glow of limestone
erased by darkness; if still we sish
we’d waited for morning,
we will know ourselves
nowhere.
Not in the mirrors of waves
or in the corrading stream,
not in the wavering
glass of an apartment building,
not in the looming light of night lobbies
or on the rainy deck. Not in the autumn kitchen
or in the motel where we watched meteors
from our bed while your slow film, the shutter open,
turned stars to rain.
We will become
indigestible. Afraid
of choking on fur
and armour, animals
will refuse the divided longings
in our foreing blue flesh.
—
In your hands, all you’ve lost,
all you’ve touched.
In the angle of your head,
every vow and
broken vow. In your skin,
every time you were disregarded,
every time you were received.
Sundered, drowsed. A seeded field,
mossy cleft, tidal pool, milky stem.
The branch that’s released when the bird lifts
or lands. In a summer kitchen.
On a white winter morning, sunlight across the bed.”
―
“She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations must adopt another method, or fail.”
― Howards End
― Howards End
“I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.”
―
―
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”
―
―
W’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at W’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
849 books
|
106 friends
246 books
|
60 friends
15 books
|
130 friends
3 books
|
42 friends
1 book
|
116 friends
0 books
|
5 friends
0 books
|
15 friends
0 books
|
56 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by W
Lists liked by W
