Ripening Quotes

“I hope you will be a warrior and fierce for change so all can live.”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980

“It was the bumble bee and the butterfly who survived, not the dinosaur.”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980

“There are no quiet dead—and no quiet deed.
Everything you touch now is ticking to its explosion.
The scab is about to infect.
The ruined land is dynamite. Cadmus teeth of dead
guerillas gnaw the air. Nature returns all wounds
as warriors.
The Earth plans resistance and cries: Live!”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980

“The only knowledge now is the knowledge of the dispossessed. Our Earth itself screams like a bandaged, roaring giant about to rise in all its wounds
and bear upon the conqueror.”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980

“Amidst the ruins we shine forth, in holy mutual
cry, revealing the plainest cruelties and human equation,
the deprivations of power, the strength of numbers,
and endurance, and the holy light from the immortal wound.”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980

“DOAN KET*

(...)We also live in a captive country, in the belly of the shark.
The horrible faces of our predators, gloating, leering,
the bloody Ford and Rockefeller and Kissinger
presiding over
the violation of Asia.


*Doan Ket' means 'solidarity' in Vietnamese.”
― Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work, 1927-1980