Anna Becker

“To me, the summer wind in the Midwest is one of the most melancholy things in all life. It comes from so far away and blows so gently and yet so relentlessly; it rustles the leaves and the branches of the maple trees in a sort of symphony of sadness, and it doesn't pass on and leave them still. It just keeps coming, like the infinite flow of Old Man River. You could -- and you do -- wear out your lifetime on the dusty plains with that wind of futility blowing in your face. And when you are worn out and gone, the wind -- still saying nothing, still so gentle and sad and timeless -- is still blowing across the prairies, and will blow in the faces of the little men who follow you, forever.”
― Ernie Pyle

“A blue preacher
flew toward the swamp,
in slow motion.

On the leafy banks,
an old Chinese poet,
hunched in the white gown of his wings,

was waiting.
The water
was the kind of dark silk

that has silver lines
shot through it
when it is touched by the wind

or is splashed upward,
in a small, quick flower,
by the life beneath it.

The preacher
made his difficult landing,
his skirts up around his knees.

The poet's eyes
flared, just as poet's eyes
are said to do

when a poet is awakened
from the forest of meditation.
It was summer.

It was only a few moments past sun's rising,
which meant the whole day
lay before them.

They greeted each other,
rumpling their gowns for an instant,
and then smoothing them.

They entered the water,
and instantly two more herons -
equally as beautiful -

joined them and stood just beneath them
in the black, polished water
where they fished all day.

"Some Herons" by Mary Oliver”
― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“The most important habit to conquer was the habit of misery itself. Nothing was so inimical to happiness as the settled conviction it was not for her. It was a conviction that ran very deep in her; but she knew she must fight to rise above it.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“He had envisaged himself kneeling upon the earth, digging in the soil, making every day small tangible contributions to flourishing.”
― Zen Cho