“crying yes risk joy”

“Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary,imperial joy and sorrow of human existence,the dreamed as well as the lived—what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death?”

“Like a child, the earth's going to sleep,or so the story goes. But I'm not tired, it says.And the mother says, You may not be tired but I'm tired”

“The Red PoppyThe great thingis not havinga mind. Feelings:oh, I have those; theygovern me. I havea lord in heavencalled the sun, and openfor him, showing himthe fire of my own heart, firelike his presence.What could such glory beif not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,were you like me once, long ago,before you were human? Did youpermit yourselvesto open once, who would neveropen again? Because in truthI am speaking nowthe way you do. I speakbecause I am shattered.”

“17. The self ended and the world began. They were of equal size, commensurate, one mirrored the other. 18. The riddle was: why couldn't we live in the mind. The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened. ”

“He takes her in his armsHe wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt youBut he thinksthis is a lie, so he says in the endYou're dead, nothing can hurt youwhich seems to hima more promising beginning, more true.”

“Desire, loneliness, wind in the flowering almond—surely these are the great, the inexhaustible subjectsto which my predecessors apprenticed themselves.I hear them echo in my own heart, disguised as convention.”