84
" Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple. ‘I won’t!’ said Alice. ‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. ‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’ At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tired to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. ‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister. ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, 1865 "
― Lewis Carroll , Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
85
" In the darkness of the night while removing the long colourful gown that covers my nakedness, there is chill penetrating bare cells and the sky is as silent as ever. Another day has withered unto the lap of mighty earth, to make her heart fertile, to feed those lives sprouting and then again to raise up to the skies to kiss life!
This home is not yours, nor this earth! A breeze that caresses the orphan longings of the senses, like that of the softest music – so is life, a passing breeze! All I own is this moment! O night, do you see stars blinking hidden amidst the darkest clouds? O life, can you inhale the fragrance of unborn flowers dancing wet in the rain?
O life, do you hear a song from the farthest skies, a secret melody of silence that I cherish deep within? "
― Preeth Nambiar , The Solitary Shores
86
" And at night the river flows, it bears pale stars on the holy water, some sink like veils, some show like fish, the great moon that once was rose now high like a blazing milk flails its white reflection vertical and deep in the dark surgey mass wall river's grinding bed push. As in a sad dream, under the streetlamp, by pocky unpaved holes in dirt, the father James Cassidy comes home with lunchpail and lantern, limping, redfaced, and turns in for supper and sleep.
Now a door slams. The kids have rushed out for the last play, the mothers are planning and slamming in kitchens, you can hear it out in swish leaf orchards, on popcorn swings, in the million-foliaged sweet wafted night of sighs, songs, shushes. A thousand things up and down the street, deep, lovely, dangerous, aureating, breathing, throbbing like stars; a whistle, a faint yell; the flow of Lowell over rooftops beyond; the bark on the river, the wild goose of the night yakking, ducking in the sand and sparkle; the ululating lap and purl and lovely mystery on the shore, dark, always dark the river's cunning unseen lips, murmuring kisses, eating night, stealing sand, sneaky.
'Mag-gie!' the kids are calling under the railroad bridge where they've been swimming. The freight train still rumbles over a hundred cars long, the engine threw the flare on little white bathers, little Picasso horses of the night as dense and tragic in the gloom comes my soul looking for what was there that disappeared and left, lost, down a path--the gloom of love. Maggie, the girl I loved. "
― Jack Kerouac , Maggie Cassidy