Everything Preserved Quotes

“I try to describe you to the river. I say you’re a snag—
Something the river can understand—catching my heart,
That I’m rowing without oars, that this is some trip,
Never able to leave you, bracing hard against swirls

That confuse me, that the whole ghostly place seems like a trap
Without bait, that nothing arrives anyplace near
Where you and I once wanted to be.

from “The Little Ghosts I Played with”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“Among the valleys of the distant waves
we will eventually meet. […]
The orange sun will recognize us. It owes us.

It will be the sun from nineteen hundred and forty-forever.
O no cloud in the sky! O ocean full of fish hiding!
The sun seduced us before we could be virgins.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“The birds swoop nearer. They are gulls.
Why, then, We must be close to the ocean!
Indeed, The sounds of your music come clearly,
Composing themselves in the air.

It was written, I think, that I'd find you
Against some sort of crazy crashing backdrop
That could go on forever, being an awful bore,
Then change into a storm.

But the birds atilt,
Hung in the sky like little notes ranging, the birds
Atilt have no connection with music.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“If there appeared a stranger to you
bending down for a kiss
unexpectedly

would you walk without clothes
out of the mirror’s view
to discover if it is you who
are the true stranger
you promised yourself to.

Does your face open on hinges
and inside two strangers entwine
and a trumpet sings out each time you look out
of the space left out
when your eyes shine in.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“I carry a map case full of scenarios
because like sand it can give me traction
when words from another intention ask to come in
and the dictionary yells out they are liars.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“I can’t open both arms and catch falling towers,
catch trees, catch helpless oceans or drowning things.
I hold out empty arms because you refuse
to fall into them.

Every bit of you inside won’t come out,
which is the way of a heart hatching.
This stubornness insists I love you while I hold
no act of God responsible.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“I guess love first requires empty arms
with a sun between them
before clouds start to fill spaces.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005

“I don't believe in love anymore, the foghorn
blasted it out of me.”
― Landis Everson, Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005