Dream Work

“I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalive for a little while.”

“LandscapeIsn't it plain the sheets of moss, except thatthey have no tongues, could lectureall day if they wanted aboutspiritual patience? Isn't it clearthe black oaks along the path are standingas though they were the most fragile of flowers?Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors of my heartever close, I am as good as dead.Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And nowthe crows break off from the rest of the darknessand burst up into the sky—as thoughall night they had thought of what they would like their lives to be, and imaginedtheir strong, thick wings.”

“Wild Geese"You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -over and over announcing your placein the family of things.”

“I wanted the past to go away, I wantedto leave it, like another country; I wantedmy life to close, and openlike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the songwhere it fallsdown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;I wantedto hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while.”

“The god of dirtcame up to me many times and saidso many wise and delectable things, I layon the grass listeningto his dog voice,frog voice; now,he said, and now,and never once mentioned foreverfrom, One or Two Things”

“Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body’s world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is – so it enters us – in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.”

“For years and years I struggledjust to love my life. And thenthe butterflyrose, weightless, in the wind."Don't love you lifetoo much," it said, and vanishedinto the world.”

“and anyway it’s just the same old story --a few people just trying,one way or another,to survive.Mostly, I want to be kind.And nobody, of course, is kind,or mean,for a simple reason.And nobody gets out of it, having toswim through the fires to stay inthis world.”

“I believed in the world.Oh, I wantedto be easyin the peopled kingdoms,to take my place there,but there was nonethat I could findshaped like me.”

“what I wantedwas to be willingto be afraid”

“Whatever power of the earth rampages, we turn to it dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never          the opposite of love.”

“You candie for it - an idea, or the world. Peoplehave done so,brilliantly,lettingtheir small bodies be boundto the stake, creatingan unforgettablefury of light. Butthis morning,climbing the familiar hillsin the familiarfabric of dawn, I thoughtof Chinaand Indiaand Europe, and I thoughthow the sunblazesfor everyone justso joyfullyas it risesunder the lashesof my own eyes, and I thoughtI am so many!What is my name?What is the nameof the deep breath I would takeover and overfor all of us? Call itwhatever you want, it ishappiness, it is another oneof the ways to enterfire.”

“And probably, if they don’t waste time looking for an easier world, they can do it.”

“What good does it doto lie all day in the sunloving what's easy?It never grew easy,but at least I grew peaceful:”

“I began to pick through the red riversof confusion;I began to take apartthe deep stitchesof nightmares.”

“How does any of us live in this world? One thing compensates for another, I suppose. Sometimes what’s wrong does not hurt at all, but rather shines like a new moon.”

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

“Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors to my heartever close, I am as good as dead.”

“the dark heart of the story that is all the reason for its telling?”

“we are all one family but love ourselves best.”

“If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.”

“I wanted to live my life but I didn’t want to do what I had to do to go on,”

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

“whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never the opposite of love.”

“Did I actually reach out my armstoward it, toward paradise falling, likethe fading of the dearest, wildest hope-the dark heart of the story that is allthe reason for its telling?”

“and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.”

“I knowdeath is the fascinating snakeunder the leaves, slidingand sliding; I knowthe heart loves him too, can’tturn away, can’tbreak the spell. Everythingwants to enter the slow thickness,aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost.Wants to be stone.”

“I forgive them their unhappiness, I forgive them for walking out of the world. But I don’t forgive them for turning their faces away, for taking off their veils and dancing for death — for hurtling toward oblivion on the sharp blades of their exquisite poems, saying: this is the way.”

“and what we see is the worldthat cannot cherish usbut which we cherish,and what we see is our lifemoving like that,along the dark edgesof everything — the headlightslike lanternssweeping the blackness —believing in a thousandfragile and unprovable things,looking out for sorrow,slowing down for happiness,making all the right turnsright down to the thumpingbarriers to the sea,the swirling waves,the narrow streets, the houses,the past, the future,the doorway that belongsto you and me.”

“You don’t want to hear the storyof my life, and anywayI don’t want to tell it, I want to listento the enormous waterfalls of the sun.”