In the Next Galaxy Quotes

“The campus, an academy of trees,
under which some hand, the wind's I guess,
had scattered the pale light
of thousands of spring beauties,
petals stained with pink veins;
secret, blooming for themselves.
We sat among them.
Your long fingers, thin body,
and long bones of improbable genius;
some scattered gene as Kafka must have had.
Your deep voice, this passing dust of miracles.
That simple that was myself, half conscious,
as though each moment was a page
where words appeared; the bent hammer of the type
struck against the moving ribbon.
The light air, the restless leaves;
the ripple of time warped by our longing.
There, as if we were painted
by some unknown impressionist.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“This tedious letter to you . . .
what is one life to another?”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Do all things come to an end?
No, they go on forever.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“and what is not there
is always more than there.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“All night you waited for morning, all morning
for afternoon, all afternoon for night;
and still the longing sings.
Oh, paper bird with folded wings.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“To violate beauty
is the essence of sexual desire.
To procreate is the essence of decay.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“I sometimes stood for long moments
listening to some bird telling me of the strangeness of myself”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Your voice still
beating inside my skull,
as if I could put my fingers
through my eyes and pull you out.
This dumb external universe.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“blinded visionary that locks the moon in place;
I am the simple sieve that drinks the universe.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“The most beautiful videos
come from reading poetry.
And they're in your head.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Like flocks of small dark birds,
hidden parts of the self weep”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Of course they are gloomy;
they drink a lot of vodka.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“It's a dirty self-cleaning universe.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Taste and smell of rain
and beyond the veil,
your voice,
its trembling overtones
without body or remorse;
these hours
that keep me as an ornament.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“What is imperative is the Off switch;
which he, at one point some time ago,
opted for himself.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“April splinters like an ice palace.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Incarnation is an empty glass.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“The light air, the restless leaves;
the ripple of time warped by our longing.
There, as if we were painted
by some unknown impressionist.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Without a key, light enters
with its hot blond muzzle
and lies upon the body;
and the body stirs and remembers.

— Ruth Stone, from “Light,” In the Next Galaxy (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“The Provider

Several crows were lined up along the ridge of a quite ordinary house. 'These ridge poles are a good idea,' said a young one. 'Who dreamed it up?' 'This place of rest is a fortuitous gift from the moon,' said a raven who was mixing with the hoi polloi today. 'The moon is a relative of the roc, a distant cousin of mine. Believe me,' he said, stretching his wings out to their full advantage and pushing the crows at the end off balance, so several leaped into the wind and cried, 'caw' . . . 'it depends on your original stock. I've got a piece of the roc.' The moon rose spectral and drained, a gossamer imprint of her nighttime self, a reminder of crystal fracture, the load of swinging primitive stones, the ancient hairy arms with slingshots. A sudden explosion and the sky was defined with flapping and cawing. 'What was that?' cried the young one who was addicted to awe. 'Who knows?' replied the raven. 'Often the moon demands a sacrifice. As a close relative, it is now my duty to go and eat the meat. For it is said, nothing is wasted; nothing is without purpose.' And the raven rose and flew toward the hunters.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“All things come to an end.
No, they go on forever.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“How can I live like this?”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“It's that season of unreasoning hope”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Strange imagined shapes of things,
wild distortions of the familiar,
like the galaxies, pinpoints,
of the imagined; until
the polished multiple eyes
of lofted telescopes —
while buffeted by cosmic dust
and plasma —
passed down bit by bit
the great glass marble of the universe.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Not so much a game
as a sphere,
a mystery.
Held up to light,
a small hole
into another dimension.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“the resuscitation promised
season after season, more and more
like the paramedic breathing into
the heart-stopped victim; the victim
stretched unconscious on the sidewalk,
the savior with the fix leaning into
and sucking the dead back
to the difficult, even impossible,
even dreaded and unwanted quick.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“March 15, 1998

Let me forget
when the hanged man
looks in the window.
Outside, the desperate
speak in a lost language.
Let us in, they sigh,
with the tongues of waterfalls.
But you, out of breath,
category of the misplaced;
serial-killer of my days;
while my left ventricle
pumps the exact pressure
of the universe . . .
in spite of your default,
with no substantial reason,
I speak for you
as though you are still here.
We are arranged like that.
A sad mistake, a Mendelbrot,
a fractal glitch, a gift from zero.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“All pauses in space,
a violent compression of meaning
in an instant within the meaningless.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“Every night passes grief-stricken, weeping.”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy

“What are these things that draw toward us,
these visitors that hide among us”
― Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy