“life is very long, unless it is not.” – Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“It was far-reaching: this much she knew. It had layers and strata, like a landscape.
[…]
trying to live as best they can in the presence of such enormous, distracting absences
[…]
then he will step out, into the light, to inhabit the form of another” – Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet
“… shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children
[…]
This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
“didn’t care for crowds—being in them, or whatever foolishness they tended to enjoy en masse”
At the still point of mottled formations and a scruple of compassion.
“I should wish to live many years, free from hates,
and make my verses, as the rivers
that moisten the earth, fresh and pure.
Lord, give me a path with trees and birds.”
-Alfonso Guillén Zelaya, translated from the Spanish by William George Williams.
“rung upon rung laddering
across the unspeakable world
[…]
while in the midst of horror
we fed on beauty—and that,
my love, is what sustained us.”
-Rita Dove, Transit.
A reworked element from the installation, Untitled (Sistrunk–in medias res. Unfurling the presence of Black life), 2020, shown in African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
And there was no voice in her head,
no whispered intelligence lurking
in the leaves—just an ache that grew
until she knew she’d already lost everything
except desire, the red heft of it
warming her outstretched palm.
Rita Dove, I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw
-Emily Dickinson
we were sometimes troubled & tired,
sad for no reason,
& so pretended we were not birds
& fell like stones—
[…]
we told ourselves that this falling—
we would remember. We thought
we would always
be birds. We didn’t know.
-Joe Wilkins
“Above All things, we want freedom. Freedom to know Our own desires. We want to follow them where they lead.
[…]
Ebry day fishing day, but ebry day no fe catch fish. (Reward does not always follow labour.)
[…]
None but ourselves can free our minds. (Garvey via Marley)”
-Zadie Smith, Wife of Willesden