#poetry

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#christianity #death #earth #funeral #poem

Dying only means moving into a nicer house. We have only gone into the next room. We still are what we have always been. We aren’t far away. We are only on the other side of the pathway. ↗

— Kerry Okines

#poetry #death

someone's sent a loving note in lines of returning geese and as the moon fills my western chamber as petals dance over the flowing stream again I think of you the two of us living a sadness apart a hurt that can't be removed yet when my gaze comes down my heart stays up ↗

— Orson Scott Card

#poetry #love

If I could blame it on all the mothers and fathers of the world, they of the lessons, the pellets of power, they of the love surrounding you like batter ... Blame it on God perhaps? He of the first opening that pushed us all into our first mistakes? No, I'll blame it on Man For Man is God and man is eating the earth up like a candy bar and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean for it is known he will gulp it all down. The stars (possibly) are safe. At least for the moment. The stars are pears that no one can reach, even for a wedding. Perhaps for a death. ↗

— Anne Sexton

#death

We all must face death and walk with it. But we also must love and live in it. ↗

— Rolando Mithcell

#inspirational #love #poetry #death

How can love's spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#poetry #words #love

once ruffle-skirted vanity table where I primped at thirteen, opening drawers to a private chaos of eyeshadows lavender teal sky-blue, swarms of hair pins pony tail fasteners, stashes of powders, colonies of tiny lipsticks (p.39) ↗

— Barbara Blatner

#colon-cancer #death #death-and-dying #death-and-sickness #death-at-home

Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy, useless light behind the terror, deathless song in the house of night. ↗

— Leonard Cohen

#love

Ledge Birds that love high trees and winds and riding flailing branches hate ledges as gripless and narrow, so that a tail is not just no advantage but ridiculous, mashed vertical against the wall. You will have seen the way a bird who falls on skimpy places lifts into the air again in seconds -- a gift denied the rest of us when our portion isn't generous. ↗

— Kay Ryan

#love

That day, that day when I can gaze at the sea--both of us calm--and I, trusting, having poured my whole heart into my Life Work....when death--black waves!--no longer courts me and I can smile, constantly, at everything because, my bones, there will be so little of myself left to give it. ↗

— Juan Ramón Jiménez

#life-work #nature-writing #poetry #death