Time You Let Me In Quotes

“Let me peer out at the world
through your lens. (Maybe I'll shudder,
or gasp, or tilt my head in a question.)
Let me see how your blue
is my turquoise and my orange
is your gold. Suddenly binary
stars, we have startling
gravity. Let's compare
scintillation - let's share
starlight.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“Getting over what you did to me is not why I get out of bed anymore.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will make

something of our lives. what if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. what else is missing?

maybe our steps are too straight and our paths too narrow and not overlapping. maybe when they overlap someone in another country lights a candle, a couple

resolves their argument, a young man puts down his silver gun and walks away.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“I'm like the weather, never really can predict when this rain cloud's gonna burst; when it's the high or it's the low, when you might need a light jacket.

Sometimes I'm the slush that sticks to the bottom of your work pants, but I can easily be the melting snowflakes clinging to your long lashes.

I know that some people like:

sunny and seventy-five,
sunny and seventy-five,
sunny and seventy-five,

but you take me as I am and never
forget to pack an umbrella.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“If someday, in a morning, you see you,
in a mirror or the dent of a spoon, and wonder
Where is my soul and
Where has it gone, remember this:
Catch the gaze of a woman
on the metro, subway, tram.
Look at a man. Seek and
you will find you
in the silvered space,
a flash between souls.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“I never did understand
why the tree was still happy
at the end. The little boy
used her until she was
nothing but a stump.
She couldn't even run away.
But the ending was always the same:
"And the tree was happy.”
― Allison Rivers, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“I'm writing mostly to thank you for living
you eighty years
and to tell you I love you
and think of you often.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“like our parents always
told us not to like
firefighters warn against
we're playing
games and making
the rules up
as we go we're
matching
warmth to warmth
starting fires burning
wishes into our
skin we're hidden
holding
forbidden lights
we're children
whose fathers have
never taught never
touch
but we're finding
these new flames
we smother
at the sound of footsteps.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25

“To know the difference,

you must run this mountain without pause. In the evening or the afternoon, you must cross the first fields waking
to your footsteps, stormwashed at the foothills.

In the evening or the afternoon, in the closing of a shadowline, you must read aloud the reddened last words of this canyon's leaves to the trees that clap their hands.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25