Home > Work > Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
21 " We live by waters breaking out of the heart. "
― Anne Carson , Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
22 " It stung God. They say his spinal cord ran straight out of the sun. "
23 " Kinds of water drown us. Kinds of water do not. "
24 " Pilgrims were people in scientific exile. "
25 " Youth is a dream where I go every night and wake with just this little jumping bunch of arteries in my hand. "
26 " When is a pilgrim like a photograph? When the blend of acids and sentiment is just right. "
27 " I am not a person who feels easy talking about blood or desire. I rarely used the word woman myself. But such things are the natural facts of what we are, I suppose we have to follow out these signs in the endless struggle against forgetting. The truth is, I lived out my adolescence mainly in default of my father’s favor. But I perceived that I could trouble him less if I had no gender. "
28 " Your separateness could kill you unless I take it from you as a sickness. "
29 " People really understand very little of one another. Sometimes when I speak to him, my Cid looks very hard and straight into my face as if in search of something (a city on a map?) like someone who has tumbled off a star. But he's not the one who feels alien—ever, I think. He lives in a small country of hope, which is his heart. Like Sokrates he fails to understand why travel should be such a challenge to the muscles of the heart, for other people. Around every bend of the road is a city of gold, isn't it?I am the kind of person who thinks no, probably not. And we walk, side by side, in different countries. "
30 " It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together. "
31 " The beloved's innocencebrutalizes the lover.As the singing of a mad personbehind you on the trainenrages you,its beautifulanimal-like teethshining amid black planesof paint.As Helenenrages history.Senza uscita. "
32 " I suppose you do love me, in your way,” I said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed. “And how else should I love you —in your way?” he asked. I am still thinking about that. "
33 " M: Is he smartI: She yes very smart sees right through meM: In my day we valued blindness rather more "
34 " What are we made of but hunger and rage? "
35 " fr. 2All We as Leaves He (following Homer) compares man's life with the leaves.All we as leaves in the shock of it: spring-one dull gold bounce and you're there. You see the sun? - I built that.As a lad. The Fates lashing their tails in a corner. But (let me think) wasn't it a hotel in Chicago where I had the first of those - my body walking out of the room bent on some deadly errandand me up on the ceiling just sort of fading out- brainsex paintings I used to call them?In the days when I (so to speak) painted. Rememberthat oddly wonderful chocolate we got in East (as it was then) Berlin? "
36 " Town of the Dragon VeinIf you wake up too early listen for it.A sort of inverted whistling the sound of sound.Being withdrawn after all where?Does all the sound in the world.Come from day after day?From mountains but.They have to give it back.At night just.As your nightly dreams.Are taps.Open reversely.In.To.Time. "
37 " The fact that Anna is somewherehaving coffee or a dreamis an assault on me.I hate these moments of poverty.What does man eat? ask the phenomenologists.Like the dogs, names,down there,starving. "
38 " He lives in a small country of hope, which is his heart. "
39 " Water is something you cannot hold. Like men. I have tried, Father, brother, lover, true friends, hungry ghosts and God, one by one all took themselves out of my hands. "
40 " You see the sun?—I built that. "