Elizabeth Bishop

“The moon in the bureau mirrorlooks out a million miles(and perhaps with pride, at herself,but she never, never smiles)far and away beyond sleep, orperhaps she's a daytime sleeper.By the Universe deserted,she'd tell it to go to hell,and she'd find a body of water,or a mirror, on which to dwell.So wrap up care in a cobweband drop it down the wellinto that world invertedwhere left is always right,where the shadows are really the body,where we stay awake all night,where the heavens are shallow as the seais now deep, and you love me.”

“Insomnia"perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.”

“Lullaby For the CatMinnow, go to sleep and dream,Close your great big eyes;Round your bed Events prepareThe pleasantest surprise.Darling Minnow, drop that frown,Just cooperate,Not a kitten shall be drownedIn the Marxist State.Joy and Love will both be yours,Minnow, don't be glum.Happy days are coming soon --Sleep, and let them come...”

“Filling StationOh, but it is dirty!--this little filling station,oil-soaked, oil-permeatedto a disturbing, over-allblack translucency.Be careful with that match!Father wears a dirty,oil-soaked monkey suitthat cuts him under the arms,and several quick and saucyand greasy sons assist him(it's a family filling station),all quite thoroughly dirty.Do they live in the station?It has a cement porchbehind the pumps, and on ita set of crushed and grease-impregnated wickerwork;on the wicker sofaa dirty dog, quite comfy.Some comic books providethe only note of color--of certain color. They lieupon a big dim doilydraping a taboret(part of the set), besidea big hirsute begonia.Why the extraneous plant?Why the taboret?Why, oh why, the doily?(Embroidered in daisy stitchwith marguerites, I think,and heavy with gray crochet.)Somebody embroidered the doily.Somebody waters the plant,or oils it, maybe. Somebodyarranges the rows of cansso that they softly say:ESSO--SO--SO--SOto high-strung automobiles.Somebody loves us all.”

“Well, the cat is flourishing and gets more spoiled and more beautiful every day. His whiskers measure, from tip to tip, including his mouth and nose, of course, ten inches, pure white whale bone.”

“Screen porch in a tree.”

“Exchanging HatsUnfunny uncles who insistin trying on a lady's hat,--oh, even if the joke falls flat,we share your slight transvestite twistin spite of our embarrassment.Costume and custom are complex.The headgear of the other sexinspires us to experiment.Anandrous aunts, who, at the beachwith paper plates upon your laps,keep putting on the yachtsmen's capswith exhibitionistic screech,the visors hanging o'er the earso that the golden anchors drag,--the tides of fashion never lag.Such caps may not be worn next year.Or you who don the paper plateitself, and put some grapes upon it,or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,--perversities may aggravatethe natural madness of the hatter.And if the opera hats collapseand crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,he thinks what might a miter matter?Unfunny uncle, you who wore ahat too big, or one too many,tell us, can't you, are there anystars inside your black fedora?Aunt exemplary and slim,with avernal eyes, we wonderwhat slow changes they see undertheir vast, shady, turned-down brim.”

“Close, close all nightthe lovers keep.They turn togetherin their sleep,Close as two pagesin a bookthat read each otherin the dark.Each knows allthe other knows,learned by heartfrom head to toes.”

“The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.”

“Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!”

“Love's the sonstood stammering elocutionwhile the poor ship in flames went down”

“I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,icily free above the stones,above the stones and then the world.If you should dip your hand in,your wrist would ache immediately,your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burnas if the water were a transmutation of firethat feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,then briny, then surely burn your tongue.It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,drawn form the cold hard mouthof the world, derived from the rocky breastsforever, flowing and drawn, and sinceour knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.”

“all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.”

“Should we have stayed home and thought of here?”

“I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this.”

“[Marianne Moore] once remarked, after a visit to her brother and his family, that the state of being married and having children had one enormous advantage: "One never has to worry about whether one is doing the right thing or not. There isn't time. One is always having to go to the market or drive the children somewhere. There isn't time to wonder 'Is this right or isn't it?”

“Time to plant tears, says the almanac.The grandmother sings to the marvelous stoveand the child draws another inscrutable house.”

“Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music [...], some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?”

“Oh, must we dream our dreamsand have them, too?”

“But they made me realize more than I ever had the rarity of true originality, and also the sort of alienation it might involve.”

“Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?”

“ I am in need of music that would flowOver my fretful, feeling finger-tips,Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,A song to fall like water on my head,And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!There is a magic made by melody:A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and coolHeart, that sinks through fading colors deepTo the subaqueous stillness of the sea,And floats forever in a moon-green pool,Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. ”

“The art of losing isn't hard to master.”

“If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good one—and the same goes for paintings. ”

“All the untidy activity continues,awful but cheerful.”

“I knew that nothing strangerhad ever happened, that nothingstranger could ever happen.”

“...what the Man-Moth fears most he must do..”

“I was made at right angles to the worldand I see it so. I can only see it so.”

“Is it right to be watching strangers in a play / in this strangest of theatres? / What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life / in our bodies, we are determined to rush / to see the sun the other way around? ”

“The art of losing isn't hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster.Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn't hard to master.Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.The art of losing isn't hard to master.I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan't have lied. It's evidentthe art of losing's not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”

“--Even losing you (a joking voice, a gesture/ I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident/ the art of losing's not too hard to master/ though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”

“Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible.”

“Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of foodand love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of thingslike slitting a baby's throat, mistaking itfor a baby goat. I'd havenightmares of other islandsstretching away from mine, infinitiesof islands, islands spawning islands,like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogsof islands, knowing that I had to liveon each and every one, eventually,for ages, registering their flora,their fauna, their geography.”

“Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)”

“But he sleeps on the top of his mastwith his eyes closed tight.The gull inquired into his dream,which was, "I must not fall.The spangled sea below wants me to fall.It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.”

“Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window, for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.”