a shandean commonplace book

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.                         Adrienne Rich

And if you’ve ever been to the lonely coast you’ve seen how the shore rock drops off into the black water and how the light on the point is final. Beyond are the old rollers coming on for millions of years. It is like that here at night but instead of the rollers its wind. But the water was here once. You think about the sea that covered this place hundreds of millions of years ago, the slow evaporations, mud turned to stone. There’s nothing calm in those thoughts. It isn’t finished, it can still tear apart. Nothing is finished. You take your chances.                        Annie Proulx   

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. W. Somerset Maugham

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!                        Henri-Frederic Amiel

Our capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful Survives, unlike beauty Amid the harshest distractions. James Longenbach

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. Anatole France