Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.
~ Mary Oliver, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches” in West Wind: Poems & Prose
Notes: Poem via The Hammock Papers. Photo: Laurence Demaison. Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Everything wants to float.
And yet we move about like weights,
attaching ourselves to everything, in thrall to gravity…
— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “14,” Sonnets to Orpheus.
Notes:
The thing is to relax and not fret about worldly things
but just let the wings open and be oneself quietly for a bit.
This never fails to renew strength.
~ Iris Murdoch, from a letter to Hal Lidderdale written c. July 1950 in Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934–1995
Notes:
I want to rest, to float–
a dust mote in a beam
of light squared by a window–
to sigh and lilt between
the object and the eye,
before the day can catch me
back up into myself,
and through that prism, watch me
– Anna Lena Phillips Bell, from “Midafternoon” in Ornament
Notes:
My hands.
In the kitchen, at the stove.
In the prairie. The shed.
Under the blanket. In the bath.
Behind the barn. In the garden.
The cornfield. The river.
By stone. By thorn. By childbirth.
Slow. Like fog.
~ Jeanann Verlee, Said the Manic to the Muse
Notes:
I empty myself with light
Until I become morning.
— Charles Wright, from “33,” Littlefoot: A Poem
Notes:
I like swimming against the current,
but only because it makes me feel
I’ve earned the ease and pleasure
of floating back to where I started.
~ Jan Heller Levi, from “Conversation,” Once I Gazed at You in Wonder
Poem Source: memoryslandscape. Image: Discover Magazine
