haley ⊹

“The Flower-Crowned Martial God; Sword in one hand, flower in the other. Shi QingXuan only remembered the flower, but had forgotten: Xie lian ascended because of his sword.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“The Moths

There's a kind of white moth, I don't know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising.

If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.

And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.

If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.

If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can't be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.

Finally, I had noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.

How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?

You aren't much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.

The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.

At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“I am so busy. I am practicing
my new hobby of watching me
become someone else. There is
so much violence in reconstruction.
Every minute is grisly, but I have
to participate. I am building
what I cannot break.”
― Jennifer Willoughby, Beautiful Zero: Poems

“Did you inherit a sickness? Did you blame god? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in yourself? Are you still on fire? Did you ever put out the fire?”
― Lisa Marie Basile, Andalucia