[I wonder

what the first
beings thought

when the air
invaded their lungs.]

Until then, they
were lifeless and dumb

but suddenly their
clay came alive

as air danced
lightly on their tongues.
Gary Catalano, from “A Meditation on Air”

(via the-final-sentence)

Source: weissewiese

[Nothing stays put. The world is a wheel.]
All that we know, that we’re
made of, is motion.
Amy Clampitt, from “Nothing Stays Put” (via journalofanobody)

(via the-final-sentence)

Source: journalofanobody

Now I know a language so beautiful and lethal
My mouth bleeds when I speak it.
Gwendolyn MacEwen, from “But”

Source: the-final-sentence

i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
Lucille Clifton, from “won’t you celebrate with me”

Source: the-final-sentence

Imagine that, for a moment.
Joanne Harris, from Sleep, Pale Sister (thanks to gothtimelord)

Source: the-final-sentence

Why am I always the neighbor of those
who force you to sing out of fear
and say out loud: Life is heavier
than the weight of all things.
Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Neighbor” (trans. Edward Snow)

Source: the-final-sentence

And whoever listens to me: being

there, and not being, lost and found
and lost again: Thank you for the feather on my tongue,

thank you for our argument that ends,
thank you for my deafness, Lord, such fire

from a match you never lit.
Ilya Kaminsky, from “Deaf Republic: 14”

Source: the-final-sentence

As my father said, it’s funny the way things turn out.
 Jasper Fforde, from Lost in a Good Book (thanks, active-with-the-activists)

Source: the-final-sentence

[We remember the dark animals in dreams;
they are the wind behind us. They are our history.]
I don’t know where I got this from, we say.
Sarah Kortemeier, from “The Dark Constellations”

(via the-final-sentence)

Source: aubade

[This I have done with my life, and am content.]
I wish I could tell you how it is in that dark,
standing in the huge singing and the alien world.
Jack Gilbert, from “Don Giovanni on His Way to Hell (II)”

Source: the-final-sentence

[The word ‘however’ is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings.] Here is one.
Hilary Mantel, from Bring Up the Bodies

(via the-final-sentence)

Source: aubade

[Wanderer, this is the pre-history of February.
The life of the poem in the mind has not yet begun.]

You were not born yet when the trees were crystal
Nor are you now, in this wakefulness inside a sleep.
Wallace Stevens, from “Long and Sluggish Lines”

Source: the-final-sentence

[They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now.] It can never be a long time ago.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, from Little House in the Big Woods (thanks, goodbyeolepaint)

Source: the-final-sentence

How can you cry for one ruined life, Maria,
when you could be grieving for heaven?
Maria Hummel, from “One Life”

Source: the-final-sentence

[Is there a single person on whom I can press belief? No sir. All I can do is say, Here’s how it went. Here’s what I saw. I’ve been there and am going back.] Make of it what you will.
Leif Enger, from Peace Like a River (thanks, lovelikeavoice)

Source: the-final-sentence