How could you
not love
the ground on which you walk?
~ Clarice Lispector, “The Buffalo” from The Complete Stories
Photo: Early morning walkers pass in Bal Harbour, Fla. (wsj.com by Wilfredo Lee)
Tag: Clarice Lispector
I’m thinkin’
For I need to know precisely this one thing:
am I feeling what I am feeling,
or am I feeling what I wanted to feel?
or am I feeling what I would need to feel?
— Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Notes: Quote: The Vale of Soul Making. Photo: Scandebergs (via this isn’t happiness)
Dinner
It was a table laid for men of good will. Who could be the actual expected guests who hadn’t come? But it really was for us. So that woman gave away her best to just anyone? And contentedly washed the feet of the first stranger. Embarrassed, we stared. The table had been spread with a solemn abundance. Piled on the white tablecloth were stalks of wheat. And red apples, enormous yellow carrots, plump tomatoes nearly bursting their skin, watery-green chayote, pineapples malignant in their savagery, calm and orangey oranges, gherkins spiky like porcupines, cucumbers wrapped taut round their watery flesh, hollow red peppers that stung our eyes— all entangled with strands and strands of corn silk, reddish as near a mouth. And all those grapes. They were the deepest shade of purple grape and could hardly wait for the moment they’d be crushed. And they didn’t care who crushed them. The tomatoes were plump to please no one: for the air, for the plump air. […]
We kept eating. Like a horde of living beings, we gradually covered the earth. Busy like people who plow for their existence, and plant, and harvest, and kill, and live, and die, and eat.
~ Clarice Lispector, “The Sharing of Loaves.” The Complete Stories (New Directions. 2015)
Notes:
- Photo: C’est Cheese – (away)with Tomatos
- Related Posts: Clarice Lispector
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
The great waiting played a part. Inside the vastness, plotting. All that, yes. Prolonged, weary, the exasperation. But at dawn the next day, like a slow ostrich straightening itself out, she was waking up. She awoke to the same intact mystery, opening her eyes she was the princess of the intact mystery. As if the factory whistle had already blown, she dressed in a hurry, downed her coffee in one gulp. Opened the front door.
~ Clarice Lispector, “Preciousness.” The Complete Stories
Credits: Image – Thank you Doug at eclecticitylight
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
Like when you squeeze lemon into black tea
and the black tea starts brightening all over.
Her fatigue was gradually brightening.
Without any fatigue whatsoever, incidentally.
The way a firefly lights up.
Since she was no longer tired,
she’d get up and get dressed.
It was time to start.
~ Clarice Lispector, “The Imitation of the Rose.” The Complete Stories
Photo: Fireflies by m hamajima via Mostly Japan