I have spent much of my life looking at plants. And recently it seems that plants, with sympathy, are looking at me. I wish I could get them to look the other way. It has all to do with the memories, memories of the time when southern California was different, or the world was different, and so was I.

~ Hildegarde Flanner

Langston Hughes

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

I saw a woman sleeping. In her
sleep she dreamt Life stood
before her, and held in each
hand a gift – in the one Love,
in the other Freedom. And she
said to the woman, ‘Choose!’
And the woman waited long:
and she said, ‘Freedom!’
And Life said, ‘Thou hast
well chosen. If though hadst said,
“Love,” I would have given
thee that thou didst ask for;
and I would have gone from
thee, and returned to thee no
more. Now, the day will come
when I shall return. In that
day I shall bear both gifts in
one hand.’
I heard the woman laugh in
her sleep.

Pamela Mercy Leaf

Adrienne Rich

The Secret

by Denise Levertov

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don’t know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can’t find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

Maya Angelou. Poet & historian.

Crown
by Kay Ryan

Too much rain
loosens trees.
In the hills giant oaks
fall upon their knees.
You can touch parts
you have no right to—
places only birds
should fly to.

~ alice walker