David Ackerman

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso

“You are not too old
and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out
its own secret.”
― Rilke

“Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.

How hard it is to tell what it was like,
this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn
(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),

a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.
But if I would show the good that came of it
I must talk about things other than the good.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass