Ingrid

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass

“To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
― Pablo Neruda

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.