“Nobody’s stronger than forgiveness.”

-Franz Wright, “Did This Ever Happen to You”

“My life, your light green eyes have lit on me with joy.”

-James Merrill, “Last Words”

“i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping green spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes…”

-e.e. cummings

“Did you look inside the cap of a mushroom, and part the curtain of disbelief?”

-Phillis Levin, “Unsolicited Survey”

“I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

-Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes”

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”

-Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes”

“Though he is captive, his mighty singing says, satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy.”

-Marianne Moore, “What Are Years?”

“Today

I say to them

say to them

say to them, Lord:

look! I am beautiful, beautiful with

my wing that is wounded

my eye that is bonded

or my ear not funded

or my walk all a-wobble.”

-Gwendolyn Brooks, “Infirm”