WORDS

my weekly posting of a poem, a quote and a passage from literature.

Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth remembered me, she 
took me back so tenderly, arranging 
her dark skirts, her pockets 
full of lichens and seeds. I slept 
as never before, a stone 
on the riverbed, nothing 
between me and the white fire of the stars 
but my thoughts, and they floated 
light as moths among the branches 
of the perfect trees. All night 
I heard the small kingdoms breathing 
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night 
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling 
with a luminous doom. By morning 
I had vanished at least a dozen times 
into something better. 
~Mary Oliver




All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost. The old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken; a light from the shadows shall spring. Renewed shall be a blade that was broken; the crownless again shall be king" - JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

"In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and found there was scarce an

apple left; but sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of
the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen
asleep or was on the point of doing so when a heavy man sat down with
rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders
against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak.
It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would
not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and
listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for from these dozen
words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended
upon me alone."

           ~from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson