Amanda Murray

“Ars Poetica II"

I find, after all these years, I am a believer—
I believe what the thunder and lightning have to say;
I believe that dreams are real,
and that death has two reprisals;
I believe that dead leaves and black water fill my heart.

I shall die like a cloud, beautiful, white, full of nothingness.

The night sky is an ideogram,
a code card punched with holes.
It thinks it’s the word of what’s-to-come.
It thinks this, but it’s only The Library of Last Resort,
The reflected light of The Great Misunderstanding.

God is the fire my feet are held to.”
― Charles Wright, Appalachia: Poems

“A cicada whines,
his voice
Starting to drown through the rainy world,
No ripple of wind,
no sound but his song of black wings,
No song but the song of his black wings.

Such emptiness at the heart,
such emptiness at the heart of being,”
― Charles Wright, Chickamauga: Poems

“THINGS HAVE ENDS AND BEGINNINGS” Cloud mountains rise over mountain range. Silence and quietness,                             sky bright as water, sky bright as lake water. Grace is the instinct for knowing when to stop. And where.”
― Charles Wright, Caribou: Poems

“Narrow road, wide road, all of us on it, unhappy,
Unsettled, seven yards short of immortality
And a yard short of not long to live.
Better to sit down in the tall grass
and watch the clouds,
To lift our faces up to the sky,
Considering—for most of us—our lives have been a constant mistake.”
― Charles Wright