Isidora

“Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.”
― Yasunari Kawabata

“I am not one of those who left the land
to the mercy of its enemies.
Their flattery leaves me cold,
my songs are not for them to praise.

But I pity the exile's lot.
Like a felon, like a man half-dead,
dark is your path, wanderer;
wormwood infects your foreign bread.

But here, in the murk of conflagration,
where scarcely a friend is left to know,
we, the survivors, do not flinch
from anything, not from a single blow.

Surely the reckoning will be made
after the passing of this cloud.
We are the people without tears,
straighter than you...more proud...”
― Anna Akhmatova

“Fifty grand for a paper bucket? Well it was all about context, you see.”
― Paul Christensen, The Hungry Wolves of Van Diemen's Land

“Remember the Morning Star,” he enjoined.

But I didn’t tell him about Tegg, whose face was the starry void itself...”
― Paul Christensen, The Heretic Emperor