rachel williams

“A blue preacher
flew toward the swamp,
in slow motion.

On the leafy banks,
an old Chinese poet,
hunched in the white gown of his wings,

was waiting.
The water
was the kind of dark silk

that has silver lines
shot through it
when it is touched by the wind

or is splashed upward,
in a small, quick flower,
by the life beneath it.

The preacher
made his difficult landing,
his skirts up around his knees.

The poet's eyes
flared, just as poet's eyes
are said to do

when a poet is awakened
from the forest of meditation.
It was summer.

It was only a few moments past sun's rising,
which meant the whole day
lay before them.

They greeted each other,
rumpling their gowns for an instant,
and then smoothing them.

They entered the water,
and instantly two more herons -
equally as beautiful -

joined them and stood just beneath them
in the black, polished water
where they fished all day.

"Some Herons" by Mary Oliver”
― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down.

No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels.

I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars.
Violet.
The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.”
― M.T. Anderson, Feed