Langston

“I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly
hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on the head,
therefore I am.
No no, you've got it all wrong, cried the man.
So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am.
You're not, not that way; you're supposed to think, not hit,
cried the man.

. . . I think, therefore I am, said the man.
I hit, therefore we both are, the hitter and the one who gets
hit, said the man's mother.
But at this point the man had ceased to be; unconscious he
could not think. But his mother could. So she thought, I am,
and so is my unconscious son, even if he doesn't know it . . .”
― Russell Edson

“The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes”
― John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

“Baby one night somebody
Going to strike a match on a tombstone
And read your name.”
― Frank Stanford, Hidden Water: From the Frank Stanford Archives

“The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history but honest and inclusive history.”
― James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong