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a wound gives off its own light
surgeons say. if all the lamps in the house were turned out you could dress this wound by what shines from it. - Anne Carson
Entering the Kingdom
- Mary Oliver The crows see me. They stretch their glossy necks In the tallest branches Of green trees. I am Possibly dangerous, I am Entering the kingdom. The dream of my life Is to lie down by a slow river And stare at the light in the trees- To learn something by being nothing A little while but the rich Lens of attention. But the crows puff their feathers and cry Between me and the sun, And I should go now. They know me for what I am. No dreamer, No eater of leaves.
Lights Out
- W.S. Merwin The old grieving autumn goes on calling to its summer the valley is calling to other valleys beyond the ridge each star is roaring alone into darkness there is not a sound in the whole night
Rain Light
- W.S. Merwin All day the stars watch from long ago my mother said I am going now when you are alone you will be all right whether or not you know you will know look at the old house in the dawn rain all the flowers are forms of water the sun reminds them through a white cloud touches the patchwork spread on the hill the washed colors of the afterlife that lived there long before you were born see how they wake without a question even though the whole world is burning
snowdrops
- Louise Glück Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to survive, earth suppressing me. I didn't expect to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body able to respond again, remembering after so long how to open again in the cold light of earliest spring afraid, yes, but among you again crying yes risk joy in the raw wind of the new world.
Starlight, 1962
- Victoria Chang Suppose the stars are just our grief reflected back to us, proof that grief sometimes forgets its source, that it can find dead things no matter how distant. Everyone arrives one day and asks, is this it? And the stars answer back with more stars. I wonder if Agnes started at the bottom or at the top, if she went left to right or right to left. There’s no use in wondering if the canvas was on the floor or on a table. To ask questions is to be distracted by point of view. Point of view has a terrible memory. I’ve looked at photos scrolling up and over, zooming in and out, and realize it is not love I want, just the ability to zoom back out. A woman loses herself when she can no longer zoom out. Agnes knew that love exists because of the distance of starlight. That desire is the only thing with nerve endings. That it drips. That it dries faster in the desert. She knew to paint it vertically but to hang it horizontally.
The Coming of Light
- Mark Strand Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
The Light Continues
- Linda Gregg Every evening, an hour before the sun goes down, I walk toward its light, wanting to be altered. Always in quiet, the air still. Walking up the straight empty road and then back. When the sun is gone, the light continues high up in the sky for a while. When I return, the moon is there. Like a changing of the guard. I don’t expect the light to save me, but I do believe in the ritual. I believe I am being born a second time in this very plain way.