Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.
~Bussy-Rabutin~Sometimes, he felt like it wasn't so much that gravity was pinning him to the Earth but instead the universe was somehow repelling him and pressing him against the planet. He counted this as just another unspoken facet of his daily paranoias ( Read more... )

With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.
~Peter Fleming~


( Read more... )

Two Renga, Untitled
both by the monk Sougi, English translations by Steven D. Carter

Hito wo yume to ya
omoishiruramu;
sumi suteshi,
sono wa kochou no
yadori nite

That man's life is but a dream -
is what we now come to know.

Its house abandoned,
the garden has become home
to butterflies.

****************************

suzushisa wa ( Read more... )

Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch, yawn, mmm. Nice nap, that. Hm, looks like I've been sleeping since, oh...September 7th. That is indeed a goodly sleep. But now I am refreshed and unwearied and returned ( Read more... )

Such a sudden feeling, this ( Read more... )

Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.
~Adam Lindsay Gordon~

Be Lost in the Call
RumiLord, said David, since you do not need us ( Read more... )

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
~William Congreve~

( When I Was a Boy )

When love first tasted the lips of being human, it started singing.
~Jelaluddin Rumi~

Dante
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom ( Read more... )

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.
~Song of Solomon 2:4-6; King James BibleSince I heard this song at the concert yesterday, it's been in my head, so I figured it deserved a ( Read more... )

He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belov'd by men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lov'd.
~William Blake~

Marvin's Lullaby
"Marvin", a.k.a. Douglas Adams, in Hitchiker's Guide to the GalaxyNow the world has gone to bed ( Read more... )