Hannah

“Fall Song"

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.”
― Mary Oliver, American Primitive

“A low whistle behind him as Alucard appeared at the entrance.
'Picking out a gift?' asked the captain.
'No.'
'Good, then take this'. He dropped a ring into Kell's hand.
Kell frowned. 'I'm flattered, but I think you're asking the wrong brother.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“Lila smiled at that, one of those smiles that made Kell profoundly nervous. The kind of smile usually followed by a weapon.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules... was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere