Carol Smith

“That’s what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. Sometimes I forget.”
― Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

“In bright white snow, when everything sleeps.

And hope has left you lonely.

When all you ever remember about summer is how it ended.

I send hope back to you, wherever you are.

I hope you remember all the people you still have time to be.

I hope the little things in your life inspire you to do big things with it.

I hope you remember that summer comes every year and that the sun, is still sweet.

I hope you learn to hope again.

I, still, hope.”
― Iain Thomas

“Yet you still value the things you’ve lost the most. Because the things you’ve lost are still perfect in your head. They never rusted. They never broke. They are made of the memories you once had, which only grow rosier and brighter, day by day. They are made of the dreams of how wonderful things could have been and must never suffer the indignity of actually still existing. Of being real. Of having flaws. Of breaking and deteriorating. Only the things you no longer have will always be perfect.”
― Iain Thomas

“How I go to the wood

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems