Quotes from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“End with an image and don't explain.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“When they shall paint our sockets gray
And light us like a stinking fuse,
Remember that we once could say,
Yesterday we had a world to lose.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“When, on your dangerous mission gone,
You underrate our foes as dunces,
Be wary, not of sudden gun,
But of your partner at the dances.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“Transformations

All night he ran, his body air,
But that was in another year.

Lately the answered shape of his laughter,
The shape of his smallest word, is fire.

He who is a fierce young crier
Of poems will be as tranquil as water,

Keeping, in sunset glow, the pure
Image of limitless desire;

Then enter earth and come to be,
Inch by inch, geography.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

“Some must break
Upon the wheel of love, but not the strange,
The secret lords, whom only death can change.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

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