the stars will whisper

(a collection of words) goodreads

[thestarswillwhisper]

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, one clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; 'Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer's treason, And guile is where it goes.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

Pink — small — and punctual — Aromatic — low — Covert — in April — Candid — in May — Dear to the Moss — Known to the Knoll — Next to the Robin In every human Soul Bold little Beauty Bedecked with thee Nature forswears Antiquity —

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

The Dying need but little, Dear, A Glass of Water's all, A Flower's unobtrusive Face To punctuate the Wall, A Fan, perhaps, a Friend's Regret And Certainty that one No color in the Rainbow Perceive, when you are gone.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

They say that "Time assuages" — Time nerver did assuage — An actual suffering strengthens As Sinews do, with age — Time is a Test of Trouble — But not a Remedy — If such it prove, it prove too There was no Malady —

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

There is a pain — so utter — It swallows substance up — Then covers the Abyss with Trance — So Memory can step Around — across — upon it — As one within a Swoon — Goes safely — where an open eye — Would drop Him — Bone by Bone.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes — I wonder if It weighs like Mine — Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long — Or did it just begin — I could not tell the Date of Mine — It feels so old a pain — I wonder if it hurts to live — And if They have to try — And whether — could They choose between — It would not be — to die — I note that Some — gone patient long — At length, renew their smile — An imitation of a Light That has so little Oil — I wonder if when Years have piled — Some Thousands — on the Harm — That hurt them early — such a lapse Could give them any Balm — Or would they go on aching still Through Centuries of Nerve — Enlightened to a larger Pain — In Contrast with the Love — The Grieved — are many — I am told — There is the various Cause — Death — is but one — and comes but once — And only nails the eyes — There's Grief of Want — and Grief of Cold — A sort they call "Despair" — There's Banishment from native Eyes — In sight of Native Air — And though I may not guess the kind — Correctly — yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary — To note the fashions — of the Cross — And how they're mostly worn — Still fascinated to presume That Some — are like My Own —

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

I've seen a Dying Eye Run round and round a Room — In search of Something — as it seemed — Then Cloudier become — And then — obscure with Fog — And then — be soldered down Without disclosing what it be 'Twere blessed to have seen —

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

She dealt her pretty words like Blades — How glittering they shone — And every One unbared a Nerve Or wantoned with a Bone — She never deemed — she hurt— That — is not Steel's Affair — A vulgar grimace in the Flesh — How ill the Creatures bear — To Ache is human — not polite — The Film upon the eye Mortality's old Custom — Just locking up — to Die.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — Too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise — you know! How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one's name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

"Hope" is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all — And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm — I've heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of Me.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

Faith is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see — But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency.

Emily Dickinson

[thestarswillwhisper]

This was the secret I learned that day: None of them want to be saved. They all want to sink backward toward the earth again, to be swallowed by the ground, to keep sleeping.

Liz Moore, Long Bright River

[thestarswillwhisper]

Then I look at [my son], and I am reminded, as always, of the ever-present threat of departure, of permanent loss. It hovers there, foreboding, a faint, high melody that only children can hear.

Liz Moore, Long Bright River

[thestarswillwhisper]

[...] my loneliness became outrageous, a low hum, an extra limb, a tin can that dragged behind me wherever I went.

Liz Moore, Long Bright River

[thestarswillwhisper]

Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after. Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street