Quotes from Jorie Graham

all the blood that has been wasted—all of it—gathers into deep coherent veins in the earth and calls itself history—& we make it make sense— & we are asked to call it good.

The future without days. Without days of it? in it? I try to—just for a second—feel that shape.

Always breathing-in this pre-life, exhaling this post. Something goes away, something comes back. But through you. Leaving no trail but self. As trails go not much of one. But patiently you travel it. Your self.

the human heart is a refugee—is standing here always in its open market, shouting out prices, in- audible prices, & wares keep on arriving, & the voices get higher— what are you worth the map of the world is shrieking, any moment of you, what is it worth, time breaks over you and you remain, more of you, more of you, asking your questions, ravishing the visible with your inquiry, and hungry, why are you so hungry…

It was a hilltop town in the south in summer. It was before I knew about knowing. My mind ran everywhere and was completely still at the center. And that did not feel uncomfortable. A bird sang, it added itself to the shadow under the archway. I think from this distance that I was happy. I think from this distance. I sat. It was before I knew walking. Only my soul walked everywhere without weight.

It is the solstice. A diamond of energy holds us. We breathe, and what we call the next moment between us, where I take your empty hand and we start home, emptied of attempt and emptied of survival skill, is love.

The flame of sun which will come out just now for a blinding minute into your eyes is saving nothing, no one, take your communion, your blood is full of barren fields, they are the future in you you should learn to feel and love: there will be no more: no more: not enough to go around: no more around: no more: love that.

The primary function of the creative use of language - in our age - is to try to constantly restore words to their meanings, to keep the living tissue of responsibility alive.

Brilliant, hard-earned and honest. The erasures and reappearances of figure and ground-that hard drama-have rarely been so movingly undertaken. A heartbreakingly beautiful work.