: Archive

June 2012

The Swimming Lesson

Feeling the icy kick, the endless waves
Reaching around my life, I moved my arms
And coughed, and in the end saw land.

Somebody, I suppose
Remembering the medieval maxim,
Had tossed me in,
Had wanted me to learn to swim,

Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back
From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising,
Ever learned anything at all,
About swimming, but only
How to puff up, one by one,
Dreams and pity, love and grace,—
How to survive in any place.

— Mary Oliver

Jun 23, 201275 notes

#Mary Oliver #The Swimming Lesson #thoughts that breathe #poetry #lit

“We are fragile so that we need beauty. If we never broke, we would never need fixing. We would never know how others have the power to fill hollow spaces in the heart. We would never know the power of books or poems or films or songs, gems from one suffering soul to another, to speak to the spirit. We would never know the power of hands in hands or arms around waists or lips on cheeks, those gentle gestures that light up the world.” —Shirley

Jun 23, 2012112 notes

#weissewiese #beautiful minds and thoughts

What Are We Gonna Do Glen Hansard

What Are We Gonna Do by Glen Hansard (from Rhythm and Repose)

Jun 23, 201283 notes

#Glen Hansard #What Are We Gonna Do #Rhythm and Repose #music #we are the music makers

ikusi asked: What is your daily routine?

Jun 23, 201217 notes

#some personal notes

The Growing of Dreams

The growing of dreams
frightens
as if the wings
to fly over these walls
are missing.

Cry for
a hand, a door
of flesh, of wood.

— Hilde Domin, trans. Elke Heckel and Meg Taylor, with thanks to armenotti

Jun 23, 201227 notes

#Hilde Domin #The Growing of Dreams #thoughts that breathe #poetry #lit

Jun 23, 201253 notes

#photography

“

I don’t need legs anymore,
Let them turn into a fish’s tail!
I’m swimming and the coolness is delightful,
The far-off bridge grows dimly white.

I don’t need a submissive soul,
Let it turn into smoke, a wisp of smoke
Of tender, light blue
Flying over the blackened quay.

See how deeply I dive,
Clutching seaweed in my hands,
No one’s words will I repeat
And no one’s longing will capture me …

But you my distant one, is it true
That you’ve become sadly mute and pale?
What’s this I hear? That for three whole weeks
You’ve been whispering” “Why, unhappy girl?”

” —[“I don’t need legs anymore”] by Anna Akhmatova, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer

Jun 23, 201261 notes

#Anna Akhmatova #Judith Hemschemeyer #thoughts that breathe #poetry #lit

“Hold my hand, you said. I’ll fall asleep
and won’t even know you’re not there.” —Elaine Feinstein, from “Hands”, posted on the-final-sentence

Jun 22, 2012216 notes

#Elaine Feinstein #Hands #thoughts that breathe #poetry #lit

“No one can face their heart
or turn their back on it.” —Les Murray, from “Panic Attack”

Jun 22, 201281 notes

#Les Murray #Panic Attack #melancholy notes #poetry #lit #thoughts that breathe

I feel removed from this day, from myself. I don’t think I’m really here.

Jun 22, 201212 notes

#some personal notes

“I mourn like you’re dead. If you had asked me to stay,

I would not have said no.” —Jon Sands, from “A Working List of Things I Will Never Tell You”, with thanks to enjambing

Jun 22, 2012896 notes

#Jon Sands #A Working List of Things I Will Never Tell You #thoughts that breathe #melancholy notes #poetry #lit

Jun 22, 2012127 notes

#photography #anonymous portraits

(I have thought about you a lot lately, the way you said boa noite and how I felt endlessly helpless.)

You don’t forget some people, they leave a mark deep inside you and I can’t help but wondering if things would have been different then, would they be different now…

Jun 21, 201223 notes

#some personal notes

“It was green, the silence; the light was moist;
the month of June trembled like a butterfly …” —Pablo Neruda, first lines to poem XL, in 100 Love Sonnets, trans. Stephen Tapscott

Jun 21, 201271 notes

#Pablo Neruda #100 Love Sonnets #Stephen Tapscott #thoughts that breathe #summer #a dream of summer #poetry #lit

“More and more I found myself at a loss for words and didn’t want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.” —Paula McLain, from The Paris Wife, with thanks to blogut

Jun 21, 20129,437 notes

#Paula McLain #The Paris Wife #quotes #little pieces of wisdom #lit

Lamento

He put the pen down.
It lies there without moving.
It lies there without moving in empty space.
He put the pen down.

So much that can neither be written nor kept inside!
His body is stiffened by something happening far away
though the curious overnight bag beats like a heart.

Outside, the late spring.
From the foliage a whistling—people or birds?
And the cherry trees in bloom pat the heavy trucks on the way home.

Weeks go by.
Slowly night comes.
Moths settle down on the pane:
small pale telegrams from the world.

— Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly

Jun 20, 2012155 notes

#Tomas Tranströmer #Lamento #Robert Bly #thoughts that breathe #poetry #lit

Jun 20, 201237 notes

#Out to sea #Timothy Gent #art #drawing #silent poetry #the sea the sea

“As the course of a river is a symbol of time, we are inclined to think of a poisoned time. And yet the sources continue to gush and we believe that time will be purified one day. I am a worshipper of flowing and would like to entrust my sins to the waters, let them be carried to the sea.” —Czesław Miłosz, from “Rivers”, in Facing the River, trans. Robert Hass

Jun 20, 201251 notes

#Czesław Miłosz #Czeslaw Milosz #Rivers #Robert Hass #Facing the River #thoughts that breathe #poetry #prose #lit

“The girl who collects shells has gone back to the coast hearing voices.” —Fionn Regan, with thanks to bearingmypoordiction

Jun 20, 201239 notes

#Fionn Regan #Hey Rabbit #quotes #melancholy notes

Anti-Pioneer Feist

Anti-Pioneer by Feist (from Metals)

Jun 20, 201220 notes

#Feist #Anti-Pioneer #Metals #music #we are the music makers