So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, A Psalm of Life.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

I AM HERE

I am here.
Why not stay?
The rutted road
oft blindly traveled
wends the other way.

That road’s unraveled,
its monuments moldered,
sleepwalkers dream wakeless
the distance unfolded.

I am here
Why not stay?
I’ll cherish my measure
of sunstruck days—
each hour a treasure—

each moment a shrine.

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OUR INSPIRATION

A PSALM OF LIFE
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.

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Notes:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882. Born in Portland, Maine (then Massachusetts)
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-wadsworth-longfellow
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psalm-of-life

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Without the playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Carl Jung

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Eolian Harp.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

A MOMENT WITH YOU

A moment with you,
weightless in love,
lingers in its own eternity—
rooted on your shore,
marveling evermore—
I, the cypress, and you, the sea.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE EOLIAN HEART
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.

                            And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

    And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility:
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!

    And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

    But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healèd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!

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Notes:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834. Born in Ottery St. Mary, Devon, England.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-taylor-coleridge
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52301/the-eolian-harp

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Everything you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, How Do I Love Thee?

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

HOW I LOVE YOU

How do I love you?
Your smile is a fan of sun rays,
curiously light and lingering,
spread wide and airy over nested treetops,
where dream sparrows for first flight,
and sing of Love’s awakening,
and when from day’s horizon ends,
you arise as goddess of the gypsy moon,
what bliss it is to drink
from your harvest-giving womb.
Your eyes are Consolation’s stars,
and in them I’m forgiven—
all my mute transgressions,
entombed and untold,
and transmuted by your glance
into jewels and gold.

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OUR INSPIRATION

HOW Do I LOVE THEE? (SONNET 43)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

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Notes:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806-1861. Born in Kelloe, Durham, England. English poet of the Victorian era.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-barrett-browning
Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43

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I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.

Francis Ford Coppola

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by The Song of Songs (The Song of Solomon), in the Bible.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

MY HEART IS AWAKE

When you sleep, my heart is awake.
A sound! A train drones like a cathedral organ—
freight cars rumble between planets—
through the pitch of space
as the city sleeps—
miles upon miles,
from stockyards to farmland vistas,
vanishing into darkness,
and again I hear the rubber wash of highways,
and all is quiet, close, and in focus.

In my heart I walk in the homeland,
where true words are written on the wind.

In my heart I climb a cloud-covered mountain,
and upon its summit I see the broad world,
stretched like an archer’s bow—
a fire-tipped arrow for the sun,
and I weep for joy to see you winged and soaring
in a sky ribbon red and orange.

Your body is warm next to mine.
Your body is my hearth,
your breast a bellows,
the contours of your face
the outer walls of my temple.

And your dreams are my home.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE BRIDE SEARCHES FOR HER BELOVED
from Song of Songs 5 (The Song of Solomon)
The Bible

I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.
“Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night.”
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
on the handles of the bolt.
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer.
The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city;
they beat me, they bruised me,
they took away my veil,
those watchmen of the walls.
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved,
that you tell him
I am sick with love.

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Notes:
About the Song of Solomon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Songs
Link to the Song of Solomon: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song+of+Solomon+5&version=ESV

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Give what you have. To someone else it may be better than you dare to think.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

SUCH BEAUTY IS THIS

Such beauty is this,
such mystery,
that upon my body you’ve planted
a walled garden of roses.

And there we dally
and laugh like arcadian children,
our legs variously crossed, curious, and uncomposed,
and time is a silken kite
on a pendulous summer wind
that knows no beginning or end.

Where are the watchtowers?
We have made them infirm
and have cracked their ancient stones
with vines of amorous glances.

My body is a canvas for your blossoms.
Your petals color for my skin,
perfume for my voice,
and to all whom I touch and speak
become drunk with their heady bouquet.

Such beauty is this,
such mystery,
that my soul is water and soil,
that upon my body you’ve planted
a walled garden of roses.

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OUR INSPIRATION

from THE PROPHET
by Kahlil Gibran

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”

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Notes:
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931. Born in the village of Bisharri in what is now northern Lebanon but was then Ottoman Syria.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kahlil-gibran
Link to Poem: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58585/58585-h/58585-h.htm

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Life is trying things to see if they work.

Ray Bradbury

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Stanzas.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

HOW I WISH YOU WERE HERE

How I wish you were here,
the way you once were
before we planted our wounded spirits
like flags on a pocked, war-torn hill.

Perhaps I’ll wait for Spring
when the cherry trees are blossoming,
and on my anamnestic skin
glisten fabled mornings.

Yet insensible is the withering heart
that clutches at dead winter air,
for God has given me graces.
These are no mere words—
Truth flowers in every perfumed letter.

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OUR INSPIRATION

STANZAS
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

’Twas thus, as ancient fables tell,
Love visited a Grecian maid,
Till she disturbed the sacred spell,
And woke to find her hopes betrayed.

But gentle sleep shall veil my sight,
And Psyche’s lamp shall darkling be,
When, in the visions of the night,
Thou dost renew thy vows to me.

Then come to me in dreams, my love,
I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

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Notes:
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1797-1851. Born in Somers Town, London, England
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50261/stanzas-oh-come-to-me-in-dreams-my-love

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God is really another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.

Pablo Picasso

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Li Po’s poem, A Poem Of Changgan.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

DEAR AND FAR

Dear and far,
far have you flown,
flown to the East,
East and to the sea.

The train head bellowed not once in the night,
so mourned it of your absence.

Now stretched so thin are you and I,
phantoms disarranged on either side
of hazy vales of miles immeasured.

And yet how deep our hearts have grown
roots into the Earth,
golden boughs into the sky.
Love never have I known,
but for your arms in mine,
sweetly in my dreams entwined.

I starve for your ripeness,
the winepress of your lips
and the stories from them told
that fill my soul as bread and water
to a dying man, days alone
on the scorched desert sand,
torn savagely from his home.

Not by some trick of conjuring,
do I force you into fullness,
to taste your wine of unsated need.

By need do you flower–
fleshly petals, red-lipped stigma,
tongue of nectar.
Tend to my longing!
For gold is as only copper
if not for your closeness.

You and I,
and the fountain of our delightful alchemy.
You: god-born naiad of Mount Helicon, come home
bearing August’s gladiolus.
I: shepherd to your flock
of antinomian desires.

Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you
and will never mind the distance.

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OUR INSPIRATION

A POEM OF CHANGGAN
by Li Po

My hair had hardly covered my forehead.
I was picking flowers, playing by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch’ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.

…At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.

…Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch’u-t’ang, of rock and whirling water.
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.

…Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

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Notes:
Li Po, 701-762. Born in Suyab of ancient Chinese Central Asia (present-day Kyrgyzstan)
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/li-po
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56596/a-poem-of-changgan

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All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.

Albert Camus

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, Sonnet IV.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

A COLD WINTER DAY

‘

On a cold winter day,
an old man sat on a park bench tottering,
nodding between clots of madness and enlightenment,
and knitted a silhouette
from a patchwork of dreams, threadbare trances,
and wisps of moth-eaten memories—
and his heart walked into it.

Around his feet a host of sparrows
danced a soot brown feather hop
and flitted higgledy-piggledy between
the breadcrumbs he tossed
like playground balls
from one squawking beak
to the next.

They saw his heart hanging heavy in the sky
and cried, “Share your secrets, Uncommon Heart!”

He was born again that day.
After all those years these words were still sung.

What did he think he was?
A gutted fish?
What cruel fisherman ripped
the bowels of his years
out of him?

But no!

There’s no Truth in Death—
Despite the bitter authority of its decree.
His heart remains,
molting its sublunar shell—
Sun-bound, hung from the clouds—
for Love’s sake its secrets tell
of a glad and glorious coming home.

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OUR INSPIRATION

SONNET IV
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

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Notes:
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950. Born in Rockland, Maine.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46557/what-lips-my-lips-have-kissed-and-where-and-why

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The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene II: Capulet’s Orchard).

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

LOVE’S SHRINE

‘Neath a bone black sky, flecked with stars,
by mindful moon I’m only seen,
I hide behind an orchard’s veil,
among the flowering fruit trees.
You I see, a silhouette so fair,
in a yellow casement window,
opened to the midnight air.
Would I expose my wounds to you?
Frailties none to whom I’ve shared?
Or better in the ether roam,
alone in Night’s ocean foam?
In my heart long suffering,
and in my thoughts imagining,
are votive candles—
your soul and mine
that burn forever in Love’s shrine.

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OUR INSPIRATION

ROMEO AND JULIET
(from Act II, Scene II: Capulet’s Orchard)
by William Shakespeare

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

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Notes:
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-shakespeare
Link to Monologue: http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_068.html

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Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

Brené Brown

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by John Donne’s Meditation XVII (from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions).

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

WHEN WE QUIT THIS SHIVERY NEST

When we quit this shivery nest
where once we huddled under dark
and our souls again are born
hanging stars—

I hope to know you still
as now you are and smile,
and by you known across the lone
midnight mile.

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OUR INSPIRATION

from MEDITATION XVII
(from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)
by John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

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Notes:
John Donne, 1572–1631. Born in London, England.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne
Link to Poem: https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html
See Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotions_upon_Emergent_Occasions
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditation_XVII

“Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.”

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We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing wings on the way down.

Kurt Vonnegut

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