[To] The Last [Be] Human Quotes

“Always breathing-in this pre-life, exhaling this post. Something goes away, something comes back. But through you. Leaving no trail but self. As trails go not much of one. But patiently you travel it. Your self.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“…yet, listen, there was rain, then the swift interval before evaporation, & the stillness of brimming, & the wet rainbowing where oil from exhaust picks up light, sheds glow, then echoes in the drains where deep inside the drops fall individually, plink, & the places where birds interject, & the coming-on of heat, & the girl looking sideways carrying the large bouquet of blue hydrangeas, shaking the water off, & the wondering if this is it, or are we in for another round, a glance up, a quick step over the puddle carrying speedy clouds, birdcall now confident again, heat drying…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“& all the blood that has been wasted—all of it—gathers into deep coherent veins in the earth and calls itself history—& we make it make sense— & we are asked to call it good.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“One day: stronger wind than anyone expected. Stronger than ever before in the recording of such. Unnatural says the news. Also the body says it.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“POEM
The earth said
remember me.
The earth said
don’t let go,

said it one day
when I was
accidentally
listening, I

heard it, I felt it
like temperature,
all said in a
whisper-build to-

morrow, make right be-
fall, you are not
free, other scenes
are not taking

place, time is not filled,
time is not late, there is
a thing the emptiness,
needs as you need

emptiness, it
shrinks from light again &
again, although all things are
present…

The earth said
remember me. I am the
earth it said. Remember me.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Today I am getting my instructions. I am getting them from something holy.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Today on two legs stood and reached to the right spot as I saw it choosing among the twisting branches and multifaceted changing shades, and greens, and shades of greens, lobed, and lashing sun, the fig that seemed to me the perfect one,

Shhh say the spreading sails of cicadas as the winch of noon takes hold and we are wrapped in day and hoisted up, all the ribs of time showing through in the growing in the lengthening harness of sound—

white powder in the confetti of light all up the branches, truth, sweetness of blood-scent and hauled-in light, withers of the wild carnival of tree shaking once as the fruit...

Iwant to sit under it full of secrecy insight immensity vigor bursting complexity swarm. Oh great forwards and backwards.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Accelerate. Immediate. Be incessant. Be disindividuated.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“...hypoxic zones is almost no more oxygen→then there is→no more→oxygen→for real→ picture that says the speaker→who are you→where are you→going down into the dead zones→water not water→the deeper you go he says the→scarier it gets→because there’s→nothing there→there are no→fish→no organisms→alive→no→no life→so it’s just us→dead zones→bigger than the Sahara he says→the largest lifeless spaces this side of the moon→he says→she says→who is this speaking to me→I am the upwelling→I am the disappearing→”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“The end of the world had already occurred. How long ago was that. I don’t know. It is not a function of knowledge. It is in a special sense that the world ends. You have to keep living.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Now listen for the pines, the bloom, its glittering, the wild hacking of sea, bend in each stream, eddy of bend—listen—hear all skins raveling, unending—hear one skin clamp down upon what now is no longer missing. Here you are says a voice in the light, the trapped light. Be happy.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“the grace that I feel at the center of my palms as if my hands were leaves and light were coursing through some hole in their grasp, the machine of time coming in, as chlorophyll could—I was not yet so tired of believing— I was still in the very beginning of being human,

accompanied by my prayer that you be spared from anything at all, from everything, and of course also its opposite, that everything happen to you in large sheets of experience as I tug back the chain-ends and push you out”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“I see you my planet, I see your exact rotation now on my floor—I will not close these eyes in this my planet...

I don’t want the moon and the stars, I want to lie here arms spread on your almost eternal turn and on the matter the turn takes-on as it is turned by that matter—Earth—as my mind lags yet is always on you,

how huge you carrying me are—and there is never hurry— and nothing will posit you as you carry the positors—as you carry the bottom of the river and its top and the clouds on its top, watery, weak, and the clouds one looks up to to see as they too turn—”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“...huge breath-held, candle-lit, whistling, planet-wide, still blood-flowing, howling-silent, sentence-driven, last-bridge-pulled-up-behind city of the human...”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“The flame of sun which will come out just now for a blinding minute into your eyes is saving nothing, no one, take your communion, your blood is full of barren fields, they are the future in you you should learn to feel and love: there will be no more: no more: not enough to go around: no more around: no more: love that.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“It was a hilltop town in the south in summer. It was before I knew about knowing. My mind ran everywhere and was completely still at the center. And that did not feel uncomfortable.
A bird sang, it added itself to the shadow under the archway. I think from this distance that I was happy. I think from this distance. I sat. It was before I knew walking. Only my soul walked everywhere without weight.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“& the breeze passes by so generously, & the air has the whole earth in its mind and it thinks it, thinks it...

the sensation of falling, the general theory of relativity, the nest of meaning—you can sit in your exile and, to the tune of the latest song, the recording of what was at some moment the song of the moment, the it song, the thing you couldn’t miss—it was everywhere—everyone was singing it—you can find your mind and in the firelight catch up on that distant moment’s news.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“…the human heart is a refugee—is standing here always in its open market, shouting out prices, in- audible prices, & wares keep on arriving, & the voices get higher— what are you worth the map of the world is shrieking, any moment of you, what is it worth, time breaks over you and you remain, more of you, more of you, asking your questions, ravishing the visible with your inquiry, and hungry, why are you so hungry…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“The future without days. Without days of it? in it? I try to—just for a second—feel that shape.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Summer heat, the first early morning of it…step out and suddenly notice this: summer arrives, has arrived, is arriving. Birds grow less than leaves although they cheep, dip, arc.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“...there is cloud on blue ground up there, & wind which the eye loves so deeply it would spill itself out and liquefy to pay for it—”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“...when will we open them again our eyes, this must all be from the world of shut eyes, one’s temples feel the cold, maybe one is inside a seashell, one is what another force is hearing—how lovely, we are being handed over to another force, listen, put this to your ear—the last river we know loses its form, widens, as if a foot were lifted from the dancefloor but not put down again, ever…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Waning moon. Rising now. Creak, it goes. Deep over the exhausted continents. I wonder says my fullness. Nobody nobody says the room in which I lie very still in the darkness watching. Your heart says the moon, waning & rising further. Where is it. Your keep, your eyes your trigger finger your spine your reasoning—”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“…stilling—very still—breathing into this oxygen which also pockets my looking hard, just that, takes it in, also my thinking which I try to seal off, my humanity, I was not a mistake is what my humanity thinks, I cannot go somewhere else than this body…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“Consider the body of the ocean which rises every instant into me, & its ancient evaporation, & how it delivers itself to me, how the world is our law, this indrifting of us into us, a chorusing in us of elements, & how the intermingling of us lacks intelligence, makes reverberation, syllables untranscribable, inclingings, & how wonder is also what pours from us…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“The permanent is ebbing. Is leaving nothing in the way of trails, they are blown over, grasses shoot up, life disturbing life…”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human

“What is the structure of freedom but this, & grace, & the politics of time—look south, look north—yes—east west compile hope synthesize exceed look look again hold fast attach speculate drift drift recognize forget—terrible gush—gash—of form of outwardness, & it is your right to be so entertained, & if you are starting to feel it is hunger this gorgeousness, feel the heat fluctuate & say my name is day, of day, in day, I want nothing to come back, not ever, & these words are mine, there is no angel to wrestle, there is no intermediary, there is something I must tell you, you do not need existence, these words, praise be, they can for now be said. That is summer. Hear them.”
― Jorie Graham, [To] The Last [Be] Human