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The Shadow of Sirius Quotes
The Shadow of Sirius
by
W.S. Merwin1,815 ratings, 4.20 average rating, 200 reviews
The Shadow of Sirius Quotes
Showing 1-11 of 11
“part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you”
― The Shadow of Sirius
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“the dead are not separate from the living
each has one foot in the unknown
and cannot speak for the other”
― The Shadow of Sirius
each has one foot in the unknown
and cannot speak for the other”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“I believe in the ordinary day
that is here at this moment and is me
I do not see it going its way
but I never saw how it came to me
it extends beyond whatever I may
think I know and all that is real to me
it is the present that it bears away
where has it gone when it has gone from me
there is no place I know outside today
except for the unknown all around me
the only presence that appears to stay
everything that I call mine it lent me
even the way that I believe the day
for as long as it is here and is me”
― The Shadow of Sirius
that is here at this moment and is me
I do not see it going its way
but I never saw how it came to me
it extends beyond whatever I may
think I know and all that is real to me
it is the present that it bears away
where has it gone when it has gone from me
there is no place I know outside today
except for the unknown all around me
the only presence that appears to stay
everything that I call mine it lent me
even the way that I believe the day
for as long as it is here and is me”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“I look for you my curl of sleep
my breathing wave on the night shore
my star in the fog of morning
I think you can always find me
I call to you under my breath
I whisper to you through the hours
all your names my ear of shadow
I think you can always hear me
I wait for you my promised day
my time again my homecoming
my being where you wait for me
I think always of you waiting”
― The Shadow of Sirius
my breathing wave on the night shore
my star in the fog of morning
I think you can always find me
I call to you under my breath
I whisper to you through the hours
all your names my ear of shadow
I think you can always hear me
I wait for you my promised day
my time again my homecoming
my being where you wait for me
I think always of you waiting”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“apparently we believe
in the words
and through them
but we long beyond them
for what is unseen
what remains out of reach
what is kept covered”
― The Shadow of Sirius
in the words
and through them
but we long beyond them
for what is unseen
what remains out of reach
what is kept covered”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“I have come back through the years to this
stone hollow encrypted in its own stillness
I hear it without listening”
― The Shadow of Sirius
stone hollow encrypted in its own stillness
I hear it without listening”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“we trust without giving it a thought
that we will always see it as we see it
once and that what we know is only
a moment of what is ours and will stay
we believe it as the moment slips away
as lengthening shadows merge in the valley
and a window kindles there like a first star
what we see again comes to us in secret”
― The Shadow of Sirius
that we will always see it as we see it
once and that what we know is only
a moment of what is ours and will stay
we believe it as the moment slips away
as lengthening shadows merge in the valley
and a window kindles there like a first star
what we see again comes to us in secret”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“As those who are gone now
keep wandering through our words
sounds of paper following them
at untold distances
so I wake again in the old house
where at times I have believed
that I was waiting for myself
and many years have gone
taking with them the semblance of youth
reason after reason ranges of blue hills
who did I think was missing
those days neither here nor there
my own dog waiting
to be known”
― The Shadow of Sirius
keep wandering through our words
sounds of paper following them
at untold distances
so I wake again in the old house
where at times I have believed
that I was waiting for myself
and many years have gone
taking with them the semblance of youth
reason after reason ranges of blue hills
who did I think was missing
those days neither here nor there
my own dog waiting
to be known”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning”
― The Shadow of Sirius
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning”
― The Shadow of Sirius
“RAIN LIGHT
All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
— W.S. Merwin, from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2008).”
― The Shadow of Sirus
All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
— W.S. Merwin, from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2008).”
― The Shadow of Sirus
“The Laughing Thrush
O nameless joy of the morning
tumbling upward note by note out of the night
and the hush of the dark valley
and out of what has not been there
song unquestioning and unbounded
yes this is the place and the one time
in the whole of before and after
with all of memory waking into it
and the lost visages that hover
around the edge of sleep
constant and clear
and the words that lately have fallen silent
to surface among the phrases of some future
if there is a future
here is where they all sing the first daylight
whether or not there is anyone listening”
― The Shadow of Sirius
O nameless joy of the morning
tumbling upward note by note out of the night
and the hush of the dark valley
and out of what has not been there
song unquestioning and unbounded
yes this is the place and the one time
in the whole of before and after
with all of memory waking into it
and the lost visages that hover
around the edge of sleep
constant and clear
and the words that lately have fallen silent
to surface among the phrases of some future
if there is a future
here is where they all sing the first daylight
whether or not there is anyone listening”
― The Shadow of Sirius
