ARETĒ

"To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the delight of the poem, which consists in the pleasure of guessing little by little; to suggest, that is the dream. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes the symbol: to evoke an object, gradually in order to reveal a state of the soul or, inversely, to choose an object and from it identify a state of the soul, by a series of deciphering operations... There must always be enigma in poetry."

“Girl, aging girl, is haunted by own nothingness & devours views from windows (stories, movies, overheard talk & sights in the street, pictures in newspapers, etc.) with continuous feeling she is ‘just about’, miraculously, to come into her own – her own life.”

What a strange sight these proud, strutting states make: armed to the teeth and possessing all possible instruments of power, they are at the same time acutely sensitive. The care and attention they have to dedicate to their police forces diminishes their external power. Were the great masses as transparent, as aligned in their atoms as the propaganda claims, then no more police would be necessary than a shepherd needs dogs for his flock of sheep. But that is not the case, for there are wolves hiding in the gray flock—that is, characters who still know what freedom is.

“I was obsessed with loss; not surprisingly, I was also acquisitive, possessive. The two tendencies fed each other; every impulse to extend my holdings increased the fundamental anxiety. Actual loss, loss of mere property, was a release, an abrupt transition from anticipation to expertise. In passing, I learned something about fire, about its appetite. I watched the destruction of all that had been, all that would not be again, and all that remained took on a radiance. These are, in the deepest sense, ordinary experiences. On the subject of change, of loss, we all attain to authority. In my case, the timing was efficient. I was in my late thirties; perhaps I’d learned all I could about preparation, about gathering. The next lesson is abandon, letting go.”

“I must wash myself clean with abstract thoughts, transparent as water.”

Now live forever and be a mirror of truth in your spirit.

what rattled inside the flower your chest held so tightly / what shook it so terribly