Jesse Hawley

“It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness...”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Wonderful is the wit and subtiltie that dumb creatures have & how they shift for themselves and annoy their enemies: which is the only difficultie that they have to arise and grow to so great an height and excessive bignesse. The dragon therefore espying the Elephant when he goeth to releese, assaileth him from an high tree and launceth himselfe upon him; but the Elephant knowing well enough well enough he is not able to withstand his windings and knittings about him, seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rockes, and so forth to crush and squise the dragon between him and them: the dragons ware hereof, entangle and snarle his feet and legges first with their taile: the Elephants on the other side, undoe those knots with their trunke as with a hand: but to prevent that againe, the dragons put in their heads into their snout, and so stop their breath, and withall, fret and gnaw the tenderest parts that they find there.

(Translated by Philomel Holland, 1601.
"The Book of Naturalists: An Anthology of the Best Natural History", 1944. p. 20)”
― Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historiae

“The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.”
― Pliny the Elder

“To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.”
― James Kavanaugh, The Poetry of James Kavanaugh