But if anything will soften me, it is food: dumplings, apple pie, sweet tea. A huge silent relief that is stillness passes through me like sun, a warm tongue on the cub’s crown, the thought of being thought of. Breath becomes easy.
~ A. K. Benjamin, Let Me Not Be Mad: My Story of Unraveling Mind
Notes: Photo via ilyfood
i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
~ e. e. cummings, from “Crepuscule” in Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E.E. Cummings by Richard S. Kennedy
Notes:
A cardinal, the very essence of red, stabs
the hedgerow with his piercing notes;
a chickadee adds three short beats,
part of the percussion section, and a white-
throated sparrow moves the melody along…
And today, the sun, waiting for its cue,
comes out from the clouds for a short sweet
solo, then sits back down, rests between turns.
On the other side of the world, night’s black
bass fiddle rosins its bow, draws it over
the strings, resonates with the breath
of sleepers, animal, vegetable, human.
All the world breathes in, breathes out.
It hums, it throbs, it improvises. So many voices.
Only one song.
~ Barbara Crooker, from “One Song. After Rumi” in Line Dance
Photo credit: via your eyes blaze out. Poem: Beyond the Fields We Know
You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won’t last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—…
Your eyes are on fire.
It won’t last…
but you’ll
remember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt…
~ Lloyd Schwartz, from “Leaves” in Goodnight, Gracie
Notes:
Once outside, I quicken my step as I head to my car. I have patients to see at the office, people like me, all of us trying our best to get out of our own ways. The light on the corner is about to change so I run to catch it, but then I notice the warmth on my skin and I stop at the curb, tilting my face to the sun, soaking it in, lifting my eyes to the world. Actually, I’ve got plenty of time.
~ Lori Gottlieb, from her new book titled Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed. Chosen as one of Amazon’s top 10 Books of the Month for April 2019.
Notes:
Each second the earth is struck hard
by four and a half pounds of sunlight.
Each second.
Try to imagine that.
No wonder deep shade is what the soul longs for.
And not, as we always thought, the light.
~ Charles Wright, from “In Praise of Thomas Hardy,” A Short History of the Shadow: Poems
Notes:
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candlesworth under the skin,
enough light to begin…
~ Carol Ann Duffy, from The Light Gatherer in “Collected Poems”
Notes:
Light staggers through the trees.
Every moment is filled with other moments…
In the silence that follows
don’t we all have to begin again? At the end of a line, the door
left open for a moment where you can fall in love, remember
what you wanted to forget, forget what you wanted to remember…
We have to light
our dark spaces with the sputtering matches of our words.
We have to follow wherever they lead us. There’s this little
hole in existence we all pass through…
—Richard Jackson, from “About This Poem” in Out of Place
Notes:
Awakened by the sun flooding my bed.
A day like a crystal cup overflowing with an uninterrupted blue and gold light.
Notes:
The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.
– C.S. Lewis, from The Weight of Glory
Photo: Gabriel Maglieri with “Family”
