Rapture Quotes

“I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.

Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.

I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.

Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,

as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.

- Tea”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.

"You”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Love’s language starts, stops, starts;
the right words flowing or clotting in the heart.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Give me, you said, on our very first night,
the forest. I rose from the bed and went out,
and when I returned, you listened, enthralled,
to the shadowy story I told.

Give me the river,
you asked the next night, then I’ll love you forever.
I slipped from your arms and was gone,
and when I came back, you listened, at dawn,
to the glittering story I told.

Give me, you said, the gold
from the sun. A third time, I got up and dressed,
and when I came home, you sprawled on my breast,
for the dazzling story I told.

Give me,
the hedgerows, give me the fields,
I slid from the warmth of our sheets,
and when I returned, to kiss you from sleep,
you stirred at the story I told.

give me the silvery cold,
of the moon. I pulled on my boots and my coat,
but when i came back, moonlight on your throat
outshone the story I told

Give me, you howled
on our sixth night together, the wind in the trees.
You turned to the wall as I left,
and when I came home, I saw you were deaf
to the blustering story I told.

Give me the sky, all the space
it can hold. I left you, the last night we loved,
and when I returned, you were gone with the gold,
and the silver, the river, the forest, the fields,
and this is the story I’ve told.


"Give”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Again, the endless northern rain between us
like a veil. Tonight, I know exactly where you are,
which row, which seat. I stand at my back door.
The light pollution blindfolds every star.

I hold my hand out to the rain, simply to feel it, wet
and literal. It spills and tumbles in my palm,
a broken rosary. Devotion to you lets me see
the concert hall, lit up, the other side of town,

then see you leave there, one of hundreds in the dark,
your black umbrella raised. If rain were words, could talk,
somehow, against your skin, I’d say look up, let it utter
on your face. Now hear my love for you. Now walk.

- Bridgewater Hall”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid steams in your china cup.

Or when you're away or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird

We text, text, text
our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.


"Text”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“I found the words at the back of a drawer,
wrapped in black cloth, like three rings
slipped from a dead woman’s hand, cold,
dull gold. I had held them before,

years ago,
then put them away, forgetting whatever it was
I could use them to say. I touched the first to my lips,
like a pledge, like a kiss,

and my breath
warmed them, the words I needed to utter this, small words,
and few. I rubbed at them till they gleamed in my palm –
I love you, I love you, I love you –
as though they were new.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“The Latin names of plants blur like belief.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“I found the words at the back of a drawer,
wrapped in black cloth, like three rings
slipped from a dead woman’s hand, cold,
dull gold. I had held them before,

years ago,
then put them away, forgetting whatever it was
I could use them to say. I touched the first to my lips,
like a pledge, like a kiss,

and my breath
warmed them, the words I needed to utter this, small words,
and few. I rubbed at them till they gleamed in my palm –
I love you, I love you, I love you –
as though they were new.


"Finding the Words”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?

Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.

I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.

I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.

I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.

I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.


"Name”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Absence "

Then the birds stitching the dawn with their song
have patterned your name.

Then the green bowl of the garden filling with light
is your gaze.

Then the lawn lengthening and warming itself
is your skin.

Then a cloud disclosing itself overhead
is your opening hand.

Then the first seven bells from the church
pine on the air.

Then the sun's soft bite on my face
is your mouth.

Then a bee in a rose is your fingertip
touching me here.

Then the trees bending and meshing their leaves
are what we would do.

Then my steps to the river are text to a prayer
printing the ground.

Then the river searching its bank for your shape
is desire.

Then a fish nuzzling for the water's throat
has a lover's ease.

Then a shawl of sunlight dropped in the grass
is a garment discarded.

Then a sudden scatter of summer rain
is your tongue.

Then a butterfly paused on a trembling leaf
is your breath.

Then the gauzy mist relaxed on the ground
is your pose.

Then the fruit from the cherry tree falling on grass
is your kiss, your kiss.

Then the day's hours are theatres of air
where I watch you entranced.

Then the sun's light going down from the sky
is the length of your back.

Then the evening bells over the rooftops
are lovers' vows.

Then the river staring up, lovesick for the moon,
is my long night.

Then the stars between us are love
urging its light.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Rapture"

Thought of by you all day, I think of you.
The birds sing in the shelter of a tree.
Above the prayer of rain, unacred blue,
not paradise, goes nowhere endlessly.
How does it happen that our lives can drift
far from our selves, while we stay trapped in time,
queuing for death? It seems nothing will shift
the pattern of our days, alter the rhyme
we make with loss to assonance with bliss.
Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds
from earth to heaven after rain. Your kiss,
recalled, unstrings, like pearls, this chain of words.
Huge skies connect us, joining here to there.
Desire and passion on the thinking air.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Presents

I snipped and stitched my soul
to a little black dress,

hung my heart on a necklace,
tears for its pearls,

my mouth went for a bracelet,
gracing your arm,

all my lover's words
for its dangling charms,

and my mind was a new hat,
sexy and chic,

for a hair of your head on my sleeve,
like a scrawled receipt.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“The curtains stir. There you are on the bed, like a gift. Like a touchable dream.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture