violentwavesofemotion:

“We glance miserably
across the room at each other

It’s true there are moments
closer and closer together
when words stick in my throat
‘the art of love’
‘the art of words’

I get your message Gabriel
just will you stay looking
straight at me
awhile longer…”

Adrienne Rich, from Gabriel (x)

(via beautywithinme)

metaphrasis:

Meticulous inch-high engravings of grasses and flowers, egrets, spoonbills, the wattled crane, the griffin vulture, the whale-headed stork—the vocabulary of hieroglyphic writing is uniquely drawn from an aesthetic delight in nature. The pictures that form hieroglyphic words represent not only the living thing itself but metaphorical dimensions that convey the essence of the living animal: a picture of the curlew with its scimitar beak in the sand defines the verb to find, the flamingo is the hieroglyph for red, the letter f in the hieroglyphic alphabet is the deadly horned viper that makes the spitting fff sound as it strikes. The origins of written language in the forms of nature show the evolution of thought from the tactile experience of the physical world. Hieroglyphs are a clear and detailed portrait of the timeless and the observable, and as such they have a stunning range of meaning and a startling immediacy.

— Susan Brand Morrow, “The Turning Sky: Discovering the Pyramid Texts”

(via vinosities)

theperfumemaker:

“When I came to those great flaming gates of burning gold, I stood alone in terror at the threshold between Paradise and Earth. There I heard a mysterious echo: my own voice singing to me from across the forbidden side. I shook awake— at once alive in a blaze of green fire. Let it be known: I did not fall from grace. I leapt to freedom.”

— Ansel Elkins, Autobiography of Eve

geopsych:

“The silence of landscape conceals vast presence. Place is not simply location. A place is a profound individuality. Its surface texture of grass and stone is blessed by rain, wind, and light. With complete attention, landscape celebrates the liturgy of the seasons, giving itself unreservedly to the passion of the goddess. The shape of a landscape is an ancient and silent form of consciousness. Mountains are huge contemplatives. Rivers and streams offer voice; they are the tears of the earth’s joy and despair. The earth is full of soul.”

— John O’Donohue

(via cleanarchitectures)

memoryslandscape:

These were the delicate words, like wings: I love you and I missed you and I’m so very sorry. They flapped without sound.

— Shuly Xóchitl Cawood, from “Listening for Truths and Answers,” What the Fortune Teller Would Have Said (Iron Horse Literary Review, 2023)

(via jardindefruits)