I can't sleep…
and I shall have some peace there,
for peace comes dropping slow
— Naomi Shihab Nye, from “The Words Under the Words,” Words Under the Words: Selected Poems.
Notes:
A clear blue sky was hard to take. Marek saw it as emptiness, a place with no heaven in it. He preferred the clouds because he could imagine paradise behind them. He could stare up and focus his eyes on shapes in the clouds, wonder if that was God’s face or God’s hand making an impression, or if God was spying down at him through the gauzy mist. Maybe, maybe.
— Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona (Penguin Press, June 21, 2022)
DK Photo @ Daybreak. 5:12 am, July 16, 2022. 65° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from yesterday here.
George & Grace @ Daybreak. 5:35 a.m. July 3, 2022. 72° F. Cove Island Park, CT. More pictures from this morning’s walk here.
And the boy went into the elves’ church. He had never seen such people before, so noble and happy. Such is life when it is lived in peace and in song. When the hymn was over, the priest mounted the pulpit and preached a sermon. Never had the boy heard a sermon so beautiful or so touching. And never afterwards did he hear a sermon like it. All his life through he remembered it, meditating upon it in secret and trying always to live up to it; but the theme of the sermon he told to no one. Some people think that it must have been about how in the end good will be triumphant in the life of man. Then the priest went to the altar and intoned in a warm, gentle voice; quite differently from our priests here on earth. It was as if a good hand was laid over his heart Then when the last hymn had been sung, all the people stood up and went out… He kept the memory of this Sunday ever afterwards in his mind and it consoled him when he had to do without the happiness that others enjoy in life; and he grew up into a man pleased with what he had and contented with his lot.
— Halldór Laxness, “Independent People”
Photo: Photo by Tabitha Mort, Portland, Oregon
I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday.
It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain.
You can feel the silent and invisible life.
— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead: A Novel
Notes: Quote via Mythology of Blue. Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 7:21 am, January 2, 2022. 52° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.