Stanley Kunitz · 288 pages
Rating: (471 votes)
“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
“One of the most paralyzing mistakes we make is thinking that our problems somehow disqualify us from being used by God. Let me just say it like it is: If you don’t have any problems, you don’t have any potential. Here’s why. Your ability to help others heal is limited to where you’ve been wounded.”
― Mark Batterson, quote from In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars
“He's a very handsome man, is the captain," said Jeaneatte. . .
"You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow.
"And I'm sure I don't," said Jeanette. "Not more than anybody else; but if a man is handsome, ma'am, why, it stands to reason that he is handsome.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?
“I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”
― Zane Grey, quote from Riders of the Purple Sage
“Where you some particular person because people recognized you as that?”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes
“Alas, but you do not recognize one thing, Monsieur le Docteur, one thing that you will find very difficult to comprehend. The twelfth century was quite different from today, different in a most special way. You see, the entire world believed in magic, and this affected things. It altered the world we perceived, everyone perceived, mortal and vampire alike. You will not be able to accept this, but it altered the very laws of physics. Magic was a little more real.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
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