Sweet Emerson – always passionate about ideas, always reasonable about passion.
Nobody ever says of a painter that he has lost his way. It is said of writers. But when one is talking about a painter one says, ‘He is finding his way.’
In more than one book I have read that Blake was actually not very good at versification; in a like number of books, if not more, I have read that Swinburne was too good at it.
As a carpenter can make a gibbet as well as an altar, a writer can describe the world as trivial or exquisite, as material or as idea, as senseless or as purposeful. Words are wood.
I can think for a little while; then, it’s the world again.
The cranberry bog – its rim an old slop-happy red.
Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.
For weeks the cut evergreens shag a fragrance.
And the thrush sings like a finger of God.
Winter Hours (2000), Mary Oliver