Sabina

“I Worried"

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

“Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.”
― John Crowley, Engine Summer

“La beauté qui parle aux yeux, reprit-elle, n’est que le prestige d’un moment; l’œuil du corps n'est pas toujours celui de l'âme."

("The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes," she continued, "is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.")

[Le beau Laurence]”
― George Sand, Pierre qui roule

“You may not agree, you may not care, but
if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world — and there are plenty — very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.”
― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems