Find & Share Quotes with Friends
Ledger Quotes
Ledger: Poems
by
Jane Hirshfield677 ratings, 4.01 average rating, 85 reviews
Open Preview
Ledger Quotes
Showing 1-30 of 46
“The fairy tales warn you:
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten.
You go in. You quicken.”
― Ledger: Poems
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten.
You go in. You quicken.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Amor Fati
Little soul,
you have wandered
lost a long time.
The woods all dark now,
birded and eyed.
Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.
The fairy tales warn you:
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten.
You go in. You quicken.
You want to have feet.
You want to have eyes.
You want to have fears.”
― Ledger: Poems
Little soul,
you have wandered
lost a long time.
The woods all dark now,
birded and eyed.
Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.
The fairy tales warn you:
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten.
You go in. You quicken.
You want to have feet.
You want to have eyes.
You want to have fears.”
― Ledger: Poems
“My Hunger
The way the high-wire walker
must carry a pole
to make her arms longer
you carried me I carried you
through this world.”
― Ledger: Poems
The way the high-wire walker
must carry a pole
to make her arms longer
you carried me I carried you
through this world.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Like Others
In the end,
I was like others.
A person.
Sometimes embarrassed,
sometimes afraid.
When “Fire!” was shouted,
some ran toward it,
some away—
I neck-deep among them.”
― Ledger: Poems
In the end,
I was like others.
A person.
Sometimes embarrassed,
sometimes afraid.
When “Fire!” was shouted,
some ran toward it,
some away—
I neck-deep among them.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Every pocket I put you in had its hole.”
― Ledger: Poems
― Ledger: Poems
“How close to human
must the breathed-in air come
before it develops a sense of shame or humor?”
― Ledger: Poems
must the breathed-in air come
before it develops a sense of shame or humor?”
― Ledger: Poems
“Library Book with Many Precisely Turned-Down Corners
I unfold carefully the thoughts of one who has come before me,
the way a listening dog’s ears
may be seen lifting
to some sound beyond its person’s quite understanding.”
― Ledger: Poems
I unfold carefully the thoughts of one who has come before me,
the way a listening dog’s ears
may be seen lifting
to some sound beyond its person’s quite understanding.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Vest"
I put on again the vest of many pockets.
It is easy to forget
which holds the reading glasses,
which the small pen,
which the house keys,
the compass and whistle, the passport.
To forget at last for weeks
even the pocket holding the day
of digging a place for my sister's ashes,
the one holding the day
where someone will soon enough put my own.
To misplace the pocket
of touching the walls at Auschwitz
would seem impossible.
It is not.
To misplace, for a decade,
the pocket of tears.
I rummage and rummage—
transfers
for Munich, for Melbourne,
to Oslo.
A receipt for a Singapore kopi.
A device holding music:
Bach, Garcia, Richter, Porter, Pärt.
A woman long dead now
gave me, when I told her I could not sing,
a kazoo.
Now in a pocket.
Somewhere, a pocket
holding a Steinway.
Somewhere, a pocket
holding a packet of salt.
Borgesian vest,
Oxford English Dictionary vest
with a magnifying glass
tucked inside one snapped-closed pocket,
Wikipedia vest, Rosetta vest,
Enigma vest of decoding,
how is it one person can carry
your weight for a lifetime,
one person
slip into your open arms for a lifetime?
Who was given the world,
and hunted for tissues, for ChapStick.”
― Ledger: Poems
I put on again the vest of many pockets.
It is easy to forget
which holds the reading glasses,
which the small pen,
which the house keys,
the compass and whistle, the passport.
To forget at last for weeks
even the pocket holding the day
of digging a place for my sister's ashes,
the one holding the day
where someone will soon enough put my own.
To misplace the pocket
of touching the walls at Auschwitz
would seem impossible.
It is not.
To misplace, for a decade,
the pocket of tears.
I rummage and rummage—
transfers
for Munich, for Melbourne,
to Oslo.
A receipt for a Singapore kopi.
A device holding music:
Bach, Garcia, Richter, Porter, Pärt.
A woman long dead now
gave me, when I told her I could not sing,
a kazoo.
Now in a pocket.
Somewhere, a pocket
holding a Steinway.
Somewhere, a pocket
holding a packet of salt.
Borgesian vest,
Oxford English Dictionary vest
with a magnifying glass
tucked inside one snapped-closed pocket,
Wikipedia vest, Rosetta vest,
Enigma vest of decoding,
how is it one person can carry
your weight for a lifetime,
one person
slip into your open arms for a lifetime?
Who was given the world,
and hunted for tissues, for ChapStick.”
― Ledger: Poems
“The arborist has determined:
senescence beetles canker
quickened by drought
but in any case
not prunable not treatable not to be propped.
And so.
The branch from which the sharp-shinned hawks and their mate-cries.
The trunk where the ant.
The red squirrels’ eighty-foot playground.
The bark cambium pine-sap cluster of needles.
The Japanese patterns the ink-net.
The dapple on certain fish.
Today, for some, a universe will vanish.
First noisily,
then just another silence.
The silence of after, once the theater has emptied.
Of bewilderment after the glacier,
the species, the star.
Something else, in the scale of quickening things,
will replace it,
this hole of light in the light, the puzzled birds swerving around it.”
― Ledger
senescence beetles canker
quickened by drought
but in any case
not prunable not treatable not to be propped.
And so.
The branch from which the sharp-shinned hawks and their mate-cries.
The trunk where the ant.
The red squirrels’ eighty-foot playground.
The bark cambium pine-sap cluster of needles.
The Japanese patterns the ink-net.
The dapple on certain fish.
Today, for some, a universe will vanish.
First noisily,
then just another silence.
The silence of after, once the theater has emptied.
Of bewilderment after the glacier,
the species, the star.
Something else, in the scale of quickening things,
will replace it,
this hole of light in the light, the puzzled birds swerving around it.”
― Ledger
“To be personal is easy:
Wake. Slip arms and legs from sleep into name, into story.
I wanted to be mountainal, wateral, wrenal.”
― Ledger: Poems
Wake. Slip arms and legs from sleep into name, into story.
I wanted to be mountainal, wateral, wrenal.”
― Ledger: Poems
“(No Wind, No Rain)
No wind, no rain,
the tree
just fell, as a piece of fruit does.
But no, not fruit. Not ripe.
Not fell.
It broke. It shattered.
One cone’s
addition of resinous cell-sap,
one small-bodied bird
arriving to tap for a beetle.
It shattered.
What word, what act,
was it we thought did not matter?”
― Ledger: Poems
No wind, no rain,
the tree
just fell, as a piece of fruit does.
But no, not fruit. Not ripe.
Not fell.
It broke. It shattered.
One cone’s
addition of resinous cell-sap,
one small-bodied bird
arriving to tap for a beetle.
It shattered.
What word, what act,
was it we thought did not matter?”
― Ledger: Poems
“A too-beautiful view rejects the mind.”
― Ledger: Poems
― Ledger: Poems
“I said I believed
a world without you unimaginable.
Now cutting its flowers to go with you into the fire.”
― Ledger: Poems
a world without you unimaginable.
Now cutting its flowers to go with you into the fire.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Little soul,
for you, too,
death is coming.
Was there something
you thought
you needed to do?
Snow
does not walk into a room
and wonder
why.”
― Ledger: Poems
for you, too,
death is coming.
Was there something
you thought
you needed to do?
Snow
does not walk into a room
and wonder
why.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Things seem strong.
Houses, trees, trucks—a chair, even.
A table. A country.
You don't expect one to break.
No, it takes a hammer to break one,
a war, a saw, an earthquake.”
― Ledger: Poems
Houses, trees, trucks—a chair, even.
A table. A country.
You don't expect one to break.
No, it takes a hammer to break one,
a war, a saw, an earthquake.”
― Ledger: Poems
“It’s like the custom for the widow at certain funerals—
Friends speak,
children,
the many and long-disguised lovers.
The widow’s task is different.
She does not speak.”
― Ledger: Poems
Friends speak,
children,
the many and long-disguised lovers.
The widow’s task is different.
She does not speak.”
― Ledger: Poems
“A moment knows itself penultimate—
usable, spendable,
good yet, but only for reckoning up.
A moment knows something’s almost over,
but not what it is.”
― Ledger: Poems
usable, spendable,
good yet, but only for reckoning up.
A moment knows something’s almost over,
but not what it is.”
― Ledger: Poems
“My Wonder
That it is one-half degree centigrade.
That I eat honeydew melon
for breakfast.
That I look out through the oval window.
That I am able to look out through an oval window.”
― Ledger: Poems
That it is one-half degree centigrade.
That I eat honeydew melon
for breakfast.
That I look out through the oval window.
That I am able to look out through an oval window.”
― Ledger: Poems
“My dignity drinks with me
a cup of coffee, with sugar and milk,
in a bathrobe.
My dignity, this day,
neither adds to nor subtracts from
the dignity of any other.
My dignity, this one day,
closes its ledgers.
Its luxury, this day, is coffee, sugar, and milk.
Is having enough to want nothing.”
― Ledger: Poems
a cup of coffee, with sugar and milk,
in a bathrobe.
My dignity, this day,
neither adds to nor subtracts from
the dignity of any other.
My dignity, this one day,
closes its ledgers.
Its luxury, this day, is coffee, sugar, and milk.
Is having enough to want nothing.”
― Ledger: Poems
“My Contentment
I reject contentment:
into it, certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish,
in a burst of somewhat cloudy light.”
― Ledger: Poems
I reject contentment:
into it, certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish,
in a burst of somewhat cloudy light.”
― Ledger: Poems
“I wake, doubt, beside you,
like a curtain half-open.
I dress doubting,
like a cup
undecided if it has been dropped.
I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious café with skeptical friends.”
― Ledger: Poems
like a curtain half-open.
I dress doubting,
like a cup
undecided if it has been dropped.
I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious café with skeptical friends.”
― Ledger: Poems
“Death: an interruption not passing,
weighing
one hundred and fifty-eight pounds,
carried on cut plywood with yellow straps.
Birth: an interruption between
two windows,
trying to think of any joke, any tune, that is new.
Between them:
this navigation by echolocation and lidar,
the weathers of avalanche, earthquake, tsunami,
firestorm, drought;
a moment that sets down—gently, sleepily—its half-read novel
on a bedside table whose side turned toward the wall stays unpainted,
confident the story will be there again come morning.”
― Ledger: Poems
weighing
one hundred and fifty-eight pounds,
carried on cut plywood with yellow straps.
Birth: an interruption between
two windows,
trying to think of any joke, any tune, that is new.
Between them:
this navigation by echolocation and lidar,
the weathers of avalanche, earthquake, tsunami,
firestorm, drought;
a moment that sets down—gently, sleepily—its half-read novel
on a bedside table whose side turned toward the wall stays unpainted,
confident the story will be there again come morning.”
― Ledger: Poems