Accepting that blur

so knowing,
what is known?
that we carry our baggage
in our cupped hands
when we burst through
the waters of our mother.
that some are born
and some are brought
to the glory of this world.
that it is more difficult
than faith
to serve only one calling
one commitment
one devotion
in one life.
-Lucille Clifton, “Far Memory”

Image: Giovanni Boccaccio
Title: Ruth Stone

Under the tall sky of hope

the weight of this stone is longing
the curve of that tree is longing
and longing makes the lightest breeze
sigh in the tall dead bracken
-Thomas A. Clark, from “At Dusk & At Dawn”, The Path to the Sea

Image: Sibley Colliery, Pennsylvania, 1886
Title: Marin Sorescu

Say what you see in the dark

There were once words here,
now they are lost.
 
Fear, that ghost.
 
-Terresa Wellborn

And this:

"Throw away the light, the definitions, and say what you see in the dark."

-Wallace Stevens

Image: Katia Chausheva

Caterpillar edging to moth

I mean, by such flightiness, something that feels unsatisfied at the center of my life – that makes me shaky, fickle, inquisitive, and hungry.  I could call it a longing for home and not be far wrong.  Or I could call it a longing for whatever supersedes, if it cannot pass through, understanding…In my outward appearance and life habits I hardly change … But at the center: I am shaking; I am flashing like tinsel.

— Mary Oliver, Long Life

Image: Chad Wys
Title: Barbara Guest, excerpt from “Passage"

Bewilderment

"I want the muddled middle to be filled with the gristle of the living.”

-Dorianne Laux +

Image: Bill Brandt, Jean Dubuffet, 1960