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He was not innocent in the sense of being blameless, but in the sense of being oblivious to the greater, probably utter, catastrophe into which the, yes, artless graciousness of bringing the school and lessons would draw them all.
that despite all the spiritual & intellectual convictions by which my God & my Scripture have fortified me since I can remember, & in which I have wholly believed if appallingly never felt—that all men are my brothers, all women my sisters, all souls my family—I nevertheless feel a visceral, involuntary repulsion whenever I am in the presence of a living Negro.
She concocted salves salutary to lean lives lived on shallow soil and bare rock.
the story of the flood in Gilgamesh from my studies at the seminary and I watch the Israelites revise it, populating the ark not with a royal court but a single family, of which every soul born since is a member, every saint and drunkard, every hermit, cutpurse, prostitute, factory owner, railroad baron. Every deadbeat mule driver is your father, your brother, every wayward milkmaid your aunt, your sister. Not a hero and his entourage aloft on the waters. Not a king and his court.
the story of the flood in Gilgamesh from my studies at the seminary and I watch the Israelites revise it, populating the ark not with a royal court but a single family, of which every soul born since is a member, every saint and drunkard, every hermit, cutpurse, prostitute, factory owner, railroad baron. Every deadbeat mule driver is your father, your brother, every wayward milkmaid your aunt, your sister. Not a hero and his entourage aloft on the waters. Not a king and his court.
And we know, too, by their very names, he said, that the sons of Noah ranged in skin color from black Ham to coppery Japheth to fair Shem. Yet they were brothers, all their father’s and their mother’s sons.
And we know, too, by their very names, he said, that the sons of Noah ranged in skin color from black Ham to coppery Japheth to fair Shem. Yet they were brothers, all their father’s and their mother’s sons.
The islanders were so used to diets of wind and fog, to meals of slow-roasted sunshine and poached storm clouds, so used to devouring sautéed shadows and broiled echoes; they found themselves stupefied by such an abundance of food and drink. For that evening it seemed to them as if they were sending Ethan off on all their behalves. And it seemed as if by sending him off to paint his beautiful pictures they all might somehow unhouse homelessness, might somehow bankrupt poverty. It seemed to all of them that evening as if they somehow might even starve hunger itself.
But then, what hath the night to do with sleep, he says aloud. He no longer sees his sleep as fitful because it is adequate even if it is intermittent and always trembles at the threshold of rousing. He never feels well rested anymore but he does not feel especially tired, either.
But then, what hath the night to do with sleep, he says aloud. He no longer sees his sleep as fitful because it is adequate even if it is intermittent and always trembles at the threshold of rousing. He never feels well rested anymore but he does not feel especially tired, either.
The sense of it all widened and captured her within it, the pains in her body, the pizzicato stings in her neck and spine, the sustained, ongoing ache of tendons bowing over the sharp edges of brittle bones, the contrabass drone of her sorrows and anger and joys, integrated with the light and shadow and color and smell, contrapuntal, syllabic, orchestrated, high and whole.
The sense of it all widened and captured her within it, the pains in her body, the pizzicato stings in her neck and spine, the sustained, ongoing ache of tendons bowing over the sharp edges of brittle bones, the contrabass drone of her sorrows and anger and joys, integrated with the light and shadow and color and smell, contrapuntal, syllabic, orchestrated, high and whole.
