Mark

“Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.”
― George Saunders

“Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.”
― Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems

“It's amazing how much of ourselves we insert into a book when we read it. Rereading a book a decade or more later, it often seems like almost a different book, because so much has changed as we have gone through time, and we insert our current selves into the book, overlaying the first reading in a palimpsest effect.”
― Mark Williams (me)