Come, Thief Quotes

“Everything has two endings-
a horse, a piece of string, a phone call.

Before a life, air.
And after.

As silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief: Poems

“as some strings, untouched,
sound when no one is speaking.

So it was when love slipped inside us.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief: Poems

“When Your Life Looks Back,

When your life looks back--
As it will, at itself, at you--what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could do?

Immersed in air or in water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.

"What will happen next?"--
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, its only house.
Let, your life had said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did--

Sleeping and waking,
the horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you--

A few times, you stood on your head.
A few times, you chose not to be frightened.
A few times, you held another beyond any measure.
A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.

Mortal, your life will say,
As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.
Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“As this life is not a gate, but the horse plunging through it.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“The heart's actions
are neither the sentence nor its reprieve.

Salt hay and thistles, above the cold granite.
One bird singing back to another because it can't not.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief: Poems

“Let reason flow like water around a stone, the stone remains.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,
right solitude oils it.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“China

Whales follow
the whale-roads.
Geese,
roads of magnetized air.

To go great distance,
exactitudes matter.

Yet how often
the heart
that set out for Peru
arrives in China,

Steering hard.
consulting the charts
the whole journey.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“Perishable, It Said

Perishable, it said on the plastic container,
And below, in different ink,
The date to be used by, the last teaspoon consumed.

I found myself looking;
Now at the back of each hand,
Now inside the knees,
Now turning over each foot to look at the sole.

Then at the leaves of the young tomato plants,
Then at the arguing jays.

Under the wooden table and lifted stones, looking.
Coffee cups, olives, cheeses,
Hunger, sorrow, fears-
These too would certainly vanish, without knowing when.

How suddenly then
The strange happiness took me,
Like a man with strong hands and strong mouth,
Inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief

“Think assailable thoughts, or be lonely.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief