usto QUOTES

1 " Lately I can't help wanting usto be like other people.For example, if I were a smoker,you'd lift a match to the cigarettejust as I put it between my lips.It's never been like thatbetween us: none of thateasy chemistry, no quick, half automaticflares. Everything between ushad to be learned.Saturday finds me broodingbehind my book, all my fantasiesof seduction run upagainst the rocks.Tell me againwhy you don't likesex in the afternoon?No, don't tell me--I'll never understand younever understand us, America's strangestloving couple: they neverdrink a bottle of wine togetherand rarely look at each other.Into each other's eyes, I mean. "

2 " Lay down
Your tired & weary head my friend.
We have wept too long
Night is falling
And you are only sleeping

We have come to this journey's end
It's time for us to go
To meet our friends
Who beckon us
To jump again

From across a distant sky
A C-130 comes to carry us
Where we shall all wait
For the final green light

In the light of
The pale moon rising
I see far on the horizon
Into the world of night and darkness
Feet and knees together

Time has ceased
But cherished memories still linger
This is the way of life and all things
We shall meet again
You are only sleeping. "

― José N. Harris , Mi Vida

3 " Yes, he is here in this
open field, in sunlight, among
the few young trees set out
to modify the bare facts--

he's here, but only
because we are here.
When we go, he goes with us

to be your hands that never
do violence, your eyes
that wonder, your lives

that daily praise life
by living it, by laughter.

He is never alone here,
never cold in the field of graves. "

― Denise Levertov

4 " To Alef, the letter
that begins the alphabets
of both Arabic and Hebrew-
two Semitic languages,
sisters for centuries.

May we find the language
that takes us
to the only home there is -
one another's hearts.

...

Alef knows
That a thread
Of a story
Stitches together
A wound. "

― Ibtisam Barakat , Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

5 " Why did the sun rise this morning
It's not natural
I don't want to see the light

It's not time to close the casket
Or say Kaddish for my son
I've already buried two fathers

With a mother to come
Isn't that enough Lord who wants us
To exalt and santify Him

I don't want to wear the mourner's ribbon
Or wake up crying every morning
For God knows how long

I don't want to tuck my son into the ground
As if we were putting him to bed
For the last time

Close the prayer book I will not pretend
That God brings peace upon us
And upon all Israel

I don't want to hear anyone
Scolding me from her wheelchair
Because I'm crying too hard

I'm not worried about a heart attack
Nothingness
You've already broken my heart

I will not forgive you
Sun of emptiness
Sky of blank clouds

I will not forgive you
Indifferent God
Until you give back my son "

― Edward Hirsch , Gabriel: A Poem

6 " It is not given to each of us
To be desired. "

― Mina Loy , The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy

7 " Evolution

Idea
Perspective
Word

Breaks into our code
Per-mutating atoms
Of our evolutionary Self-s

Our sensory navigating device
Accepts or rejects the impulse
Creating realities of our choice

A natural drift takes us from an amoeba to a human
A very determined choice takes us further
Allowing us
To squeeze our way through
To awake-n
To God and his gift of
Aware-ness "

― Nataša Pantović , Art of 4 Elements (AoL Mindfulness, #2)

8 " My child, I know you're not a child
But I still see you running wild
Between those flowering trees.
Your sparkling dreams, your silver laugh
Your wishes to the stars above
Are just my memories.

And in your eyes the ocean
And in your eyes the sea
The waters frozen over
With your longing to be free.

Yesterday you'd awoken
To a world incredibly old.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

You had to kill this child, I know.
To break the arrows and the bow
To shed your skin and change.
The trees are flowering no more
There's blood upon the tiles floor
This place is dark and strange.

I see you standing in the storm
Holding the curse of youth
Each of you with your story
Each of you with your truth.

Some words will never be spoken
Some stories will never be told.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

I didn't say the world was good.
I hoped by now you understood
Why I could never lie.
I didn't promise you a thing.
Don't ask my wintervoice for spring
Just spread your wings and fly.

Though in the hidden garden
Down by the green green lane
The plant of love grows next to
The tree of hate and pain.

So take my tears as a token.
They'll keep you warm in the cold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

You've lived too long among us
To leave without a trace
You've lived too short to understand
A thing about this place.

Some of you just sit there smoking
And some are already sold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
This is the age you are broken or turned into gold. "

― Antonia Michaelis , The Storyteller

9 " could not sleep last nightbed cover of unease distance kept me awake windy whispers in summer nightwas telling you were awake one corner to another rollinglike swimming in a competitionmy heart wanted to seeyou then n thenwe live ,we loveon same earth mostlyrare within a real another world don't allow usto sleep in side your ,or mine restful love©litymunshi "

10 " To count the stones losing count
is the sense of our life: the algebra
of our displacements.
To follow paths losing sense
is the circumvolution, the evolution: the logic
of our moments. But. No.
There is no symmetry in our acts.
Never the chance of steps that surprise us
to salt.
Our time machine. Forward.
Never backward the meat machine.
No turning back. No turning back.
There is no remedy: death
is an incurable asymmetry.
Huge is the ticking of the Clock but
but our time has the clutch, the vortex
the saltwater of a wave that covers us.
It reshapes and hollows out the face, like sand
robs us of our flesh. "

― Piero Olmeda , Of Time and Goats

11 " O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion. "

― Robert Burns , Collected Poems of Robert Burns

12 " Our fate lies
in the hands
of the things we love
and sometimes
the things we love
are the things
that lead us
to the fatal destruction
of ourselves. "

― , Black Butterfly

13 " I believe the stars are the headlights of angels driving from heaven to save usto save us...Won't you look at the sky?They're driving from heaven into our eyes. And though final words are so hard to devise, I promise that I'll always remember your pretty eyes. "