“
The sky is always beautiful.Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy,it's still beautiful to look at....it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Hopeless (Hopeless, #1))
“
You know,” she’d said, “they say people are like snowflakes, each one unique, but I think they’re more like skies. Some are cloudy, some are stormy, some are clear, but no two are ever quite the same.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
All shadows of clouds the sun cannot hide
like the moon cannot stop oceanic tide;
but a hidden star can still be smiling
at night's black spell on darkness, beguiling
”
”
Munia Khan
“
A weakened mind always sees everything through a black veil. The soul makes its own horizons; your soul is dark, which is why you see such a cloudy sky.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
I feel like I've swallowed a cloudy sky
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)
“
Noah's eyes held my face. I swallowed hard. The juxtaposition of him sitting in a room full of people while staring at no one but me was overwhelming. Something shifted inside of me at the intimacy of us, eyes locked amid the scraping of twenty graphite pencils on paper.
I shaded his face out of nothingness. I smudged the slope of his neck and darkened his delinquent mouth, while the lights accented the right angle of his jaw against the cloudy sky outside. I did not hear the bell. I did not hear the other students rise and leave the room. I did not even notice that Noah no longer sat at the stool.
”
”
Michelle Hodkin (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1))
“
The sky is always beautiful. Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy, it's still beautiful to look at. It's my favourite thing because I know if I ever get lost or lonely or scared, I just have to look up and it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Hopeless (Hopeless, #1))
“
Don't forget:beautiful sunsets need cloudy skies.
”
”
Paulo Coelho
“
For a moment
he became smoke.
How intimate,
now,
the cloudy sky.
”
”
Izumi Shikibu (The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan)
“
When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.
”
”
Stephen King (The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1))
“
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands” (Richard Bach). And if not every problem, then just about every one. Even spectacular sunsets are not possible without cloudy skies. Troubles bring a gift for those who choose to look. And since I can't avoid my problems, why waste them? I should look for the gift. My life will be far, far richer for finding it.
”
”
Steve Goodier
“
But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond
”
”
Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
“
The sky is always beautiful. Even when it’s dark or rainy or cloudy, it’s still beautiful to look at. It’s my favorite thing because I know if I ever get lost or lonely or scared, I just have to look up and it’ll be there no matter what...and I know it’ll always be beautiful.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Hopeless (Hopeless, #1))
“
Happiness lives in every corner of your home and if you are homeless, it lives under the leaves of trees, hiding beneath the sky's cloudiness. All you need to do is to find it with patience.
”
”
Munia Khan
“
Here, then, is the last moment of true perception, a man fishing in a red jacket and a cloudy sky reflected on opaque water.
”
”
Michael Cunningham (The Hours)
“
Gray.
The overcast skies had the colour of deadened stones, and seemed closer than usually, as though they were phlegmatically observing my every movement with their apathetic emptily blue-less eyes; each tiny drop of hazy rain drifting around resembled transparent molten steel, the pavement looked like it was about to burst into disconsolate tears, even the air itself was gray, so ultimate and ubiquitous that colour was everywhere around me.
Gray...
”
”
Simona Panova (Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew))
“
I wish that in order to secure his party’s nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickenson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael’s “Two Sleepy People”, Johnny Cash’s “Five Feet High and Rising”, and “You Got the Silver” by the Rolling Stones...What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes.
”
”
Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot)
“
Don't close your door
when someone walks away.
Your wounds will heal
and summer wind will dry
your tears.
Don't close your heart,
surrender to the sea
of silky rose petals
and let the sun
tickle you.
Don't lose hope,
life still believes in you.
Darling, raindrops
are nothing but
diamonds tears from heaven
and when your sky is cloudy,
stars are painting
sparkly scenery for you.
Be patient.
”
”
Anita Krizzan
“
I’ll tell you a secret, kitten. Everyone feels like that sometimes. Sometimes things get bad, and you can’t see a future ahead. It’s all cloudy, like the sky on a rainy day. But life moves very fast. Things never stay the same forever, even the bad things. The clouds will blow away. They always do, I promise.
”
”
Catriona Ward (The Last House on Needless Street)
“
You see, proteins, as I probably needn't tell you, are immensely complicated groupings of amino acids and certain other specialized compounds, arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns that are as unstable as sunbeams on a cloudy day. It is this instability that is life, since it is forever changing its position in an effort to maintain its identity--in the manner of a long rod balanced on an acrobat's nose.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire, #3))
“
The sky is always beautiful. Even when it’s dark or rainy or cloudy, it’s still beautiful to look at
”
”
Colleen Hoover
“
On cloudy days I just want to raise my arm up, stand on my toes, and screw a light bulb into the sky. Don’t worry, my light bulb is energy efficient—it runs on solar power.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
“
There was a sigh from Death. Space he thought. That was the trouble. It was never like this on worlds with everlastingly cloudy skies. But once humans saw all that space, their brains expanded to try and fill it up.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Death and What Comes Next (Discworld, #10.5; Death, #1.5))
“
On Drinking Alone by Moonlight
Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where’s a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?
Rather than to drink alone,
I’ll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.
Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company
The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.
But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.
Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear.
”
”
Li Bai (The Works Of Li Po: The Chinese Poet (1922))
“
Sometimes the clouds in the sky are mistaken. They didn’t come to block the sunlight. They came to embrace it.
”
”
Kaylee Stepkoski
“
A heart without kindness is like a river without water.
A mind without clarity is like a dark cloudy sky.
A life without purpose is like journey without destination.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.
”
”
Stephen King (The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1))
“
Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full, that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare)
“
Xie Lian fell back to the bottom of the pit and glared at the hiding moon in the cloudy night sky for a bit, growing very angry.
This pit wasn't even that deep, so why couldn't he climb out, no matter how he tried?
”
”
Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù (White-Clothed Calamity)
“
Flapping crows. Shiny beetles crawling in the undergrowth. A patch of sky, frozen in a cloudy retina, reflected in a puddle on the ground. Yoo-hoo. Being and nothingness.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
On a cloudy night, when nothing seems above, still, there is love. Always love. For something, from someone. It's never done. Never.
”
”
Deepak Rana (Sky Beyond the Clouds)
“
I keep a fair distance between Raffaele and myself as we walk. He seems to do the same, and we don’t look at each other as we make our way down the long steps of the Tamouran palace’s main gates, where horses are waiting for us. From there, we ride underneath a cloudy sky that threatens more rain.
”
”
Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
“
Our city, these streets, I don't know why it makes me so depressed. That old familiar gloom that befalls the city dweller, regular as due dates, cloudy as mental Jell-O. The dirty facades, the nameless crowds, the unremitting noise, the packed rush-hour trains, the gray skies, the billboards on every square centimeter of available space, the hopes and resignation, irritation and excitement. And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero.
”
”
Haruki Murakami
“
During the day, my mood is cloudy, uncertain, blurred, depressing, and there is so much fog I can’t see the sun, nor do I have a head's up that the rain is coming. I wish just one day my mood could at least be fair skies.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
“
If you want the stars, I will not give you the moon. Even if it is rainy or cloudy, I will still put up a ladder to the sky to pick them for you.
”
”
Priest (杀破狼 [Sha Po Lang])
“
There was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening...
”
”
J.K. Rowling
“
A mind without clarity is like a dark cloudy sky.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Sunlight is exuberant. Thunderstorms are passionate. Two extremes, and so much better than nothing at all. Cloudy skies are like nothing at all. Apathetic. Numb. The feeling you feel when you have no idea what you feel. When everything has gone so wrong, it no longer feels wrong. There suddenly is no right or wrong. There’s just emptiness. It would be better for the clouds to cry, or better for the sun to shine. But curse this bearing wall where the sky is nothing at all.
”
”
Abbie Emmons (100 Days of Sunlight)
“
I walk with my hands in my pockets and the streetlights casting halogen halos though the fog, and I can't help thinking this is probably what Heaven will be like, warm air and cloudy skies and the feeling of absolute contentment that only comes from coffee and pie and knowing your place in the world.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day)
“
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights that you will not see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse and not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before and will be said after me
I didn't know I like the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault that Andrei watched on his back on the battlefield at Borodino
...
”
”
Nâzım Hikmet (Things I didn't know I loved: Selected poems of Nâzim Hikmet)
“
I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way to the Maine border on their first New Hampshire meet and greet. I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People," Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising," and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes.
”
”
Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot)
“
Starlight beats when heart twinkles
Youthful sky beyond cloudy wrinkles
Muse of glory to flame the night
Verse inscribed as written light
”
”
Munia Khan
“
Helen opened her eyes and gazed into the luminous blue of the sky. Was it crazy, she wondered, to be as grateful as she felt now, for moments like this, in a world that had atomic bombs in it—and concentration camps, and gas chambers? People were still tearing each other into pieces. There was still murder, starvation, unrest, in Poland, Palestine, India—God knew where else. Britain itself was sliding into bankruptcy and decay. Was it a kind of idiocy or selfishness, to want to be able to give yourself over to the trifles: to the parp of the Regent’s Park Band; to the sun on your face, the prickle of grass beneath your heels, the movement of cloudy beer in your veins, the secret closeness of your lover? Or were those trifles all you had? Oughtn’t you, precisely, to preserve them? To make little crystal drops of them, that you could keep, like charms on a bracelet, to tell against danger when next it came?
”
”
Sarah Waters (The Night Watch)
“
It would be wholly impossible for me to say whether this cloudy, silently disturbed, unraveled sky is mirrored in my soul or the reverse, whether or not I read the image of my own inner life in this sky. Sometimes everything is so completely uncertain! There are days when I am convinced that no man on earth can recognize certain moods of air and cloud, certain tones of color, certain fragrances and movements of moisture as finely, as exactly, and as truly as I can, with my old, nervous sense of poet and wanderer. And then again, as today, it can be doubtful to me whether I have seen, heard, and smelled anything after all, whether everything that I took to be true is not merely an image cast outward, the image of my inner life.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Wandering)
“
My first thought when I came here was that I understood why there are so many great Irish writers - because there is something mystical in the air. There's always this cloudy, moody sky and it's challenging.
”
”
Christopher Meloni (Brief Interviews with Hideous Men)
“
No Belle, you're wrong. No one will ever make me feel the way I do with you. I know this with the certainty that the sun will set today and rise again tomorrow. The kind of certainty that when the moon rises and the stars blink in the sky that they'll all still look way too dim to me. They'll always look too dim because you are the brightest star in my life and, without you, everything else seems cloudy. I only seem to see things clearly when you're around and I know all of that because you are my soul
”
”
Jessie Lane (Secret Maneuvers (Ex Ops #1))
“
No matter how cloudy the sky can be;
There is a beam of sunlight that shines down on me.
”
”
Nadine Sadaka Boulos
“
The sky is always beautiful.Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy,it's still beautiful to look at....it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful.
”
”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless
“
Like the morning sun, you appeared in my cloudy sky and filled my world with light, love, beauty, and joy.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
She was no longer the princess who loved to watch pink snowflakes swirling down from the cloudy sky, one who could command the bowed knee of every person in the room.
”
”
Colleen Oakes (Blood of Wonderland (Queen of Hearts Saga, #2))
“
A long time ago, on a world as close as shadow : a very different version of north america cradled a huge land-locked saline sea. This sea teemed with microbial life. All this served a single tremendous organism. And on this world, under a cloudy sky, the entirety of the turbid sea cackled with a single thought. I....
This thought was followed by another
To what purpose?
”
”
Terry Pratchett
“
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (Collected Poems)
“
I take a deep breath, relishing in the fresh air and open space around me. Something wet splatters on my cheek, and I turn my face toward the cloudy sky that is now beginning to drizzle down on me. I spread out my arms and tilt my head up, loving the feel of rain pelting my skin. The the drizzle turns into a downpour. Rain is falling rapidly while I'm smiling stupidly. My head feels clearer than it has in days as cool water coats my skin, my dress, my hair. I spin in place, the skirts of my gown swishing around my ankles, feeling like an idiot and absolutely loving it. I slip the shoes from my aching feet and pad through puddles like I did as a little girl, reminding me of a time when I was younger... Laughter bubbles out of me. Hysterical. I am completely hysterical. Rain is sticking strands of hair to my face and dripping down the tip of my nose while I smile through it all, momentarily forgetting about my troubles and simply taking a moment to exist. "I don't know that I ever lived before lying eyes on the likes of you." I spin, blinking through the steady stream of rain before my eyes find the gray ones blending in with the sheet of water falling down on us. His hair is dripping wet, all wavy and tousled. His white button-down shirt is sticky and see-through, showing off an inked chest and tanned torso beneath. And the sight of him has me smiling. "oh, but I only have eyes for one little lady, and I can't seem to take them off of her." His chest is rising and falling just as rapidly as the rain while my heart is thundering just as loudly as the storm.
”
”
Lauren Roberts, Powerless
“
Life has an uncanny way of tying up a host of loose ends. Not in the neat, all-creases-matching, hospital corner-to-corner kind of way, but in a cloudy, murky, uncertain mish-mash collection of what ifs, could haves, and a bus load of should haves kind of way. But what happens when all the magnificent stars in the heavens and all the resolute planets in the galaxy agree to simultaneously align? What happens when the glorious birds of prey in the sky and the steadfast worker ants of the ground all decide to ally? And more intriguingly, what happens when the settling of old hurts and scores becomes so alluring, so certain, with the whispered promise of everlasting, as to lure with it a collection of hardly surviving, barely functioning, scattered, and damaged souls together once again? As one door finally seemed to close tightly shut, two others flung wide open, and the darkness of life’s most protected secrets and haunts invited the crippling unknown to bask once again in the glaring, naked light.
”
”
Sahar Abdulaziz (As One Door Closes)
“
Lord Buddha himself taught that basically, human nature is pure, egoless, just as the sky is by nature clear, not cloudy. Clouds come and go, but the blue sky is always there; clouds don’t alter the fundamental nature of the sky. Similarly, the human mind is fundamentally pure.
”
”
Thubten Yeshe (Becoming Your Own Therapist)
“
The water cycle consists of three phenomena – evaporation, precipitation, and collection- which are the three phenomena that make up what is known as “the water cycle.” Evaporation, the first of these phenomena, is the process of water turning into vapor and eventually forming clouds, such as those found in cloudy skies, or on cloudy days, or even cloudy nights. These clouds are formed by a phenomenon known as “evaporation,” which is the first of three phenomena that make up the water cycle. Evaporation, the first of these three, is simply a term for a process by which water turns into vapor and eventually forms clouds. Clouds can be recognized by their appearance, usually on cloudy days or nights, when they can be seen in cloudy skies. The name for the process by which clouds are formed – by water, which turns into vapor and becomes part of the formation known as “clouds” – is “evaporation,” the first phenomenon in the three phenomena that make up the cycle of water, otherwise known as “the water cycle,” and surely you must be asleep by now and so can be spared the horrifying details of the Baudelaires' journey.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #11))
“
I will look at you in the darkness of the night, where there are no colours to fill my eyes and where there are no frames that would define your shape. In the silence, I will seek the warmth of the night in your memories and sleep holding tight those orphan dreams. O dear, amidst the cloudy skies, where did you disappear?
”
”
Preeth Padmanabhan Nambiar (The Solitary Shores)
“
Is the sky blue?" "Well, that depends." Sometimes it's blue, different shades depending on where you, what the weather is like, or the time of day. On cloudy days the sky is really shades of white and gray, and sometimes it looks red, or pink around sunset, or when there is a nearby fire..." I mean really, the possibilities are endless, to a lawyer.
”
”
Melody A. Kramer (Why Lawyers Suck! Hacking the Legal System, Part 1)
“
As I walked by a small pond—my reflection was looking back at me. The cloudy sky reflection makes the pond look like dark clouds are underwater. I know how that feels— mentally, it is a prison of dark forces tying your legs together as it refuses to let you kick and swim so that you can breathe. Instead, it drowns your thoughts with darkness and despair.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
“
Flapping crows. Shiny beetles crawling in the undergrowth. A patch of sky, frozen in a cloudy retina, reflected in a puddle on the ground. Yoo-hoo. Being and nothingness
”
”
Donna Tartt
“
Wisps of clouds scattered across the heavens, as if brought to their place by a great sigh.
”
”
Gina Marinello-Sweeney (Peter (The Veritas Chronicles, #3))
“
The cloudy sun poured light through all the sky.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town, #2))
“
The sun goes down on the sky and makes her cloudy cheeks blush red with passion.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones
“
Bubba then grabbed a hold of my leg and his eyes got all cloudy and that terrible pink sky seem to drain all the colour in his face.
He was trying to say something, and so I bent over real close to hear what it was. But I never could make it out. So I asked the medic, ' You hear what he say?'
And the medic say, 'Home. He said, home.'
Bubba, he died, and that's all I got to say about that.
”
”
Winston Groom (Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump, #1))
“
Ichigo… I hate rain. It rains in this world too. When you’re upset, the skies grow cloudy. When you’re sad, it rains. I can’t stand it. I wonder if you can grasp…the terror of being rained on in this lonely world. To be able to hold back the rain…I’ll give you everything I have. Should you place your trust in me…I won’t let any rain fall on this world. Believe me… you aren’t fighting alone… Ichigo!
”
”
Tite Kubo (Bleach, Volume 13)
“
Wild Peaches"
When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
2
The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.
Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
The spring begins before the winter’s over.
By February you may find the skins
Of garter snakes and water moccasins
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.
3
When April pours the colors of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak,
We shall live well — we shall live very well.
The months between the cherries and the peaches
Are brimming cornucopias which spill
Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches
We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.
4
Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There’s something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There’s something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
”
”
Elinor Wylie
“
Snow-flakes
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“
Fully functioning people never complain, and particularly they don’t complain about the rocks being rough, or the sky being cloudy or the ice being too cold. Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing.
”
”
Wayne W. Dyer
“
Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’
Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
”
”
A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad)
“
Statements made by distant church bells remind me it is Sunday. Today the sky has become cloudy. I have been watching the clouds and it occurs to me that I have never done this in my life before, simply sit and watch clouds. As a child I would have been far too anxious to ‘waste time’ in this way. And my mother would have stopped me. As I write this I am sitting on my plot of grass behind the house where I have put a chair, cushions, rugs. It is evening. Thick lumpy slate-blue clouds, their bulges lit up to a lighter blue, move slowly across a sky of muddy and yet brilliant gold, a sort of dulled gilt effect. At the horizon there is a light glittering slightly jagged silver line, like modern jewellery. Beneath it the sea is a live choppy lyrical goldeny-brown, jumping with white flecks. The air is warm. Another happy day. (‘Whatever will you do down there?’ they asked.)
In a quiet surreptitious way I am feeling very pleased with myself.
”
”
Iris Murdoch (The Sea, the Sea)
“
Our city, these streets, I don’t know why it makes me so depressed. That old familiar gloom that befalls the city dweller, regular as due dates, cloudy as mental Jell-O. The dirty façades, the nameless crowds, the unremitting noise, the packed rush-hour trains, the gray skies, the billboards on every square centimeter of available space, the hopes and resignation, irritation and excitement. And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero. That’s the city. That’s when I remember what that Chinese girl said. This was never any place I was meant to be.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (The Elephant Vanishes)
“
Linc didn't know if it was his imagination, but the streets seemed to have gotten older and dirtier - more so, surely, then was possible in the time that had gone by. What he remembered as the center of where the action was, and where all of life happened had turned into tired and shabby remnants of an age that was running down.
Had the store fronts always been so grubby with their cloudy windows, half hearted displays, the paint around the doors dulled and peeling like the once-high hopes of some forgotten opening day long ago? Had trash always stunk like this, piled in alleys and strewn along the gutters?
Above it all, high-rental buildings that had once thrust proudly toward the sky crumbled silently amid the winds, the rain, and the corrosive fames eating into them. They had degenerated into cheap hotels and apartments while business fled the cities for manicured office parks by the interstates.
But the people no longer stopped to gaze at these buildings, in any case. The figures on the sidewalks hurried on, avoiding each other's eyes, enwrapped in their own isolation.
Even those who stood or walked together aimed words at each other from behind facades that had become so second nature that even they themselves now mistook them for the persons atrophying within.
A city of brooding shells, inhabited by beings who hid inside shells.
”
”
James P. Hogan (Outward Bound)
“
Do they hear my call in the night?
Dreams of faraway lands to go to live,
Spending all my time in thinking of him?
Knowing I have done all and to love and give.
Not enough to keep my love,
The moon is my only friend tonight it is calm and white as snow,
I cannot stop thinking of his arms his face and smile,
I want to leave somewhere away and go.
Does anybody share my point of view,
Wrapped up in a obsession of non stop thinking,
My heart is in love with him,
Can I stop this masquerade of my sinking?
The butterfly with no home,
The Rose that blooms in the night,
Cloudy skies that cover the silver of the moon,
A dark path in my heart, once so tender and bright.
Softness now hurts,
Living just being one,
Reality sets in,
It was over before it begun.
Hear my call sweet winds,
I ask to be healed and set me free,
I know he does not love me,
The winds of fate tell me.
They tell me to see,
What I need to hear and see
”
”
Albert Alexander Bukoski
“
The dark sky is being covered by a thick fog. The view reminds me of how I always felt about you. Instead of me being surrounded by your love, I was covered by a cloudy white thick fog, trying to find my way out of a chaotic maze in my mind. I’ve been broken all my life, and the fog hasn’t shown me any grace or mercy. I am tired of always trying to fight through the fog. I am exhausted from not knowing which way to go. Nevertheless, once the fog clears, I feel like I am on the hunt and racing time.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
“
A rising sun died in America and the world on Nov. 22, 1963. Some say that we have never again seen such a rising sun in the sky as we did that morning. Even if it was cloudy or raining that day, the country and world were more innocent and optimistic at that moment than they have been since then. Some say that a piece of all of us – the hope that helps us get through another day - died that day. Others say the act just opened the eyes of many about what the U.S. government and other governments had done in our names for a long time.
”
”
Kevin James Shay (Death of the Rising Sun: A Search for Truth in the JFK Assassination)
“
Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature’s; reversals, after all, are the means by which nature regulates this visible realm of hers: clear skies follow cloudy; after the calm comes the storm; the winds take turns to blow; day succeeds night; while part of the heavens is in the ascendant, another is sinking. It is by means of opposites that eternity endures.
”
”
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
“
May 21 “If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.” Ecclesiastes 11:3 WHY, then, do we dread the clouds which now darken our sky? True, for a while they hide the sun, but the sun is not quenched; he will shine out again before long. Meanwhile those black clouds are filled with rain; and the blacker they are, the more likely they are to yield plentiful showers. How can we have rain without clouds? Our troubles have always brought us blessings, and they always will. They are the dark chariots of bright grace. These clouds will empty themselves before long, and every tender herb will be the gladder for the shower. Our God may drench us with grief, but he will not drown us with wrath; nay, he will refresh us with mercy. Our Lord’s love-letters often come to us in black-edged envelopes. His wagons rumble, but they are loaded with benefits. His rod blossoms with sweet flowers and nourishing fruits. Let us not worry about the clouds, but sing because May flowers are brought to us through the April clouds and showers. O Lord, the clouds are the dust of thy feet! How near thou art in the cloudy and dark day! Love beholds thee, and is glad. Faith sees the clouds emptying themselves and making the little hills rejoice on every side.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
“
Sunday Morning
I
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
II
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.
III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.
IV
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings
”
”
Wallace Stevens
“
In order to get to this monastery you must have flown in a plane?” he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. I agreed. “Was it cloudy when you left?” he asked. “It’s always cloudy in England,” I replied, smiling. “Well then,” he said, “you’ll know that if you get in a plane and fly up through the clouds, there’s nothing but blue sky on the other side. Even when it appears as though there’s nothing but big, dark, heavy clouds, there’s always blue sky there.” There was no denying it, I’d flown a lot over the years and he was right. “So,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “the sky is always blue.” He chuckled to himself as though everything I ever needed to know was in that one sentence, and in a way it was.
”
”
Andy Puddicombe (Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day)
“
I take a deep breath, relishing in the fresh air and open space around me. Something wet splatters on my cheek, and I turn my face toward the cloudy sky that is now beginning to drizzle down on me. I spread out my arms and tilt my head up, loving the feel of rain pelting my skin. The the drizzle turns into a downpour. Rain is falling rapidly while I'm smiling stupidly. My head feels clearer than it has in days as cool water coats my skin, my dress, my hair. I spin in place, the skirts of my gown swishing around my ankles, feeling like an idiot and absolutely loving it. I slip the shoes from my aching feet and pad through puddles like I did as a little girl, reminding me of a time when I was younger... Laughter bubbles out of me. Hysterical. I am completely hysterical. Rain is sticking strands of hair to my face and dripping down the tip of my nose while I smile through it all, momentarily forgetting about my troubles and simply taking a moment to exist. "I don't know that I ever lived before lying eyes on the likes of you." I spin, blinking through the steady stream of rain before my eyes find the gray ones blending in with the sheet of water falling down on us. His hair is dripping wet, all wavy and tousled. His white button-down shirt is sticky and see-through, showing off an inked chest and tanned torso beneath. And the sight of him has me smiling. "oh, but I only have eyes for one little lady, and I can't seem to take them off of her." Hos chest is rising and falling just as rapidly as the rain while my heart is thundering just as loudly as the storm.
”
”
Lauren Roberts, Powerless
“
You had a right to vent. I was behaving like a mother hen."
"A very sweet mother hen with too many chicks."
"I promise to back off." He offered her another bite of pizza. "But I can't promise not to worry."
"Fair enough." She kept her hand on his. "It's natural to worry.But you have to trust,too."
"You know what I've decided?" He plumped up a pillow and stretched out beside her. "You're even more of a rebel than I am."
"You think so?"
"Yeah."
"Next you'll be loaning me your Harley."
"I could be persuaded." He linked his fingers with hers.
She stared at their joined hands and sighed. "This is nice."
"Yeah.I was just thinking the same thing." He leaned his head back and began chuckling.
"What's so funny?"
"I've been a bear for the past week. I'd have happily snapped off anybody's head who dared to cross me."
"I know what you mean.Fortunately, there was nobody around for me to snap at. I had to content myself with yelling at the talking heads on TV." She paused. "How're you feeling now?"
He looked over at her. "What a difference a week makes. The thunderstorm's gone. The cloudy skies. The nasty rain. I'm all sunshine and blue skies and sweet-smelling flowers, thanks to you."
"Me,too." She set her wine on the nightstand and leaned over to brush a kiss over his mouth. "I'm so glad you're here,Wyatt.This has been the longest week of my life."
His arms came around her,gathering her close.Against her lips he whispered, "Speaking of which, you make me weak."
"And you make me..."
His kiss cut off her words.
As they rolled together, one word played over and over in her mind.
Content.
Wyatt McCord made her feel content. And safe.And absolutely, completely, thoroughly loved.
”
”
R.C. Ryan (Montana Destiny)
“
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware
”
”
Thomas Hardy
“
Ode to a Dressmaker’s Dummy"
Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover.
Metal stand. Instructions included. --Sears, Roebuck Catalogue
O my coy darling, still
You wear for me the scent
Of those long afternoons we spent,
The two of us together,
Safe in the attic from the jealous eyes
Of household spies
And the remote buffooneries of the weather;
So high,
Our sole remaining neighbor was the sky,
Which, often enough, at dusk,
Leaning its cloudy shoulders on the sill,
Used to regard us with a bored and cynical eye.
How like the terrified,
Shy figure of a bride
You stood there then, without your clothes,
Drawn up into
So classic and so strict a pose
Almost, it seemed, our little attic grew
Dark with the first charmed night of the honeymoon.
Or was it only some obscure
Shape of my mother’s youth I saw in you,
There where the rude shadows of the afternoon
Crept up your ankles and you stood
Hiding your sex as best you could?--
Prim ghost the evening light shone through.
”
”
Donald Justice (A Donald Justice Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose)
“
The young lady then placed her hands on Kode’s shoulder, letting her cheek rest on top of the pile. The smile on her face was more than a victory smile. It was a happy sign of contentment. Eena wondered.
“When do you suppose those two will get married?” She whispered the question to Kira who still had a firm grip on her arm.
“Kode get married?” The incredulity on Kira’s face matched her brother’s strong outburst.
“Who the hell says I’m gettin’ hitched?”
Niki pushed herself away from her boyfriend’s shoulder; her upper lip curled into a resentful scowl at the negative way he had voiced his query.
Eena had never meant for them to overhear. She stumbled over a justification for the question. “It’s just that you’ve been together for a while, you know, like a couple. Close. I mean, you’re always together so…I just figured…” she let the notion trail off.
Kode looked queasy. “We’re always together ‘cause she bloody follows me around everywhere I go like I’m some freakin’ tour guide!”
“Fine!” Niki exclaimed, holding her palms like a defensive wall in front of her. “I’ll leave if that’s what you want. I don’t need you! There’s plenty of other guys who’d love to get their lips on me!” With that outburst, the pretty Mishmorat twirled her body around, setting off on foot with both fists seared into her hips. Kode let her take about four steps before he darted over and dragged her back. She didn’t put up much of a fight, but her beautiful burgundy eyes refused to look at him.
“Ungrateful woman,” he murmured. “No one asked you to leave.”
Niki continued to glare up at the cloudy sky.
Kode sighed a long, perturbed sound. His next words were mumbled like they were torturous to have to speak out loud.
“Come on, Niki, you know I don’t want you to go. Who the hell’s gonna keep me in line if you’re gone?”
That made the pretty Mishmorat smile. She breathed in deeply and then dropped her gaze onto her man. His face was a goofy grimace, hers a smug grin of satisfaction. Kode threw an arm roughly around his girlfriend and pulled her close to him. He then turned to Eena, shrugging one shoulder.
“She’ll probably break down and marry me this summer,” he said. “That’s what I’m thinkin’ anyway.” Niki’s head went back to rest on Kode’s shoulder, right where it had started.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Tempter's Snare (The Harrowbethian Saga #5))
“
Dear Familiar Place,
I am lost. I wonder who lives behind my eyes. I guess a lost little child who never grew up. However, I was forced to grow up, but I never had a chance to experience the sweet and playful side of life. I notice that at the moment, it is only me sitting on you—usually, I would have to share you with two or three people. After I leave, you will not be marked until a lonely broken soul will claim you. Just for tonight, they will have something to claim as their own. I wonder who will claim you tonight? I thank you for keeping me warm the best way you could. I am sure you are one of everyone’s best friends. I bet you have a lot of stories to tell. I am looking at the clouds and wondering how long the cloud will last in my life. I’ve had so many cloudy days; sadly, I forget how the sun looks and feels. My eyes are sensitive to the daylight, but they are immune to the darkness with just the right kind of light from the stars. During the day, my mood is cloudy, uncertain, blurred, depressing, and there is so much fog I can’t see the sun, nor do I have a head's up that the rain is coming. I wish just one day my mood could at least be fair skies. I’ll accept cool and fair skies. I mean, at least for once, could my life be fair instead of constantly feeling anxiety and my soul tied in two knots or more? I retraced my thoughts and noticed the wind was blowing. I smile slightly because the leaves are playing with each other as the breeze shows them some unconditional love. I wonder what unconditional love is? In my world, unconditional love is blowing dandelions in the daytime and hugging the stars during the night. I guess that’s all the love I need.
Wishing for brighter days.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
“
1. For the space of one entire month (from full moon to full moon), a single leaf from a Mandrake must be carried constantly in the mouth. The leaf must not be swallowed or taken out of the mouth at any point. If the leaf is removed from the mouth, the process must be started again. 2. Remove the leaf at the full moon and place it, steeped in your saliva, in a small crystal phial that receives the pure rays of the moon (if the night is cloudy, you will have to find a new Mandrake leaf and begin the whole process again). To the moon-struck crystal phial, add one of your own hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew collected from a place that neither sunlight nor human feet have touched for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. Put this mixture in a quiet, dark place and do not look at it or otherwise disturb it until the next electrical storm. 3. While waiting for the storm, the following procedure should be followed at sunrise and sundown. The tip of the wand should be placed over the heart and the following incantation spoken: ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus.’ 4. The wait for a storm may take weeks, months or even years. During this time, the crystal phial should remain completely undisturbed and untouched by sunlight. Contamination by sunlight gives rise to the worst mutations. Resist the temptation to look at your potion until lightning occurs. If you continue to repeat your incantation at sunrise and sunset there will come a time when, with the touch of the wand-tip to the chest, a second heartbeat may be sensed, sometimes more powerful than the first, sometimes less so. Nothing should be changed. The incantation should be uttered without fail at the correct times, never omitting a single occasion. 5. Immediately upon the appearance of lightning in the sky, proceed directly to the place where your crystal phial is hidden. If you have followed all the preceding steps correctly, you will discover a mouthful of blood-red potion inside it.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies (Pottermore Presents, #1))
“
Have you seen the careful manner in which deer drink from a lake at sunrise? That is the way she moves. Have you ever heard the sound a shooting star makes as it crosses a cloudy sky? That is the way she breathes.
”
”
S.M. White (Tales from the bear and lion)
“
When I started to climb, the sky seemed to be sunny and blue. But being up here on the oak tree it is cloudy and foggy.
”
”
Sandra Harner (Ema's Odyssey: Shamanism for Healing and Spiritual Knowledge)
“
her mind preoccupied, her gaze trained on the changing sky—partly cloudy, partly clear—as they neared the downtown Atlanta area. Bradford pears and planters filled with flowers added a splash of color among the concrete and glass and steel. “Y-you realize, of course, that this is only temporary,
”
”
Rhonda Nelson (Double Dare)
“
menace is quietly growing. The cloudy skies and rain that had continued throughout Tuesday had slowed the process of decomposition of the hundreds of bodies that are scattered from Plantation Key to Grassy Key and across Florida Bay. Now the bodies floating in the water, stuck in mangrove bushes, or just lying on the ground are rotting with unbelievable rapidity in the tropical heat.
”
”
Thomas Neil Knowles (Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane)
“
Coming back to the village through the snow, under the dark cloudy skies, Belle felt like she had been away for a lifetime. She had, in fact, never left the village by herself before this. There were a couple of overnight trips to fairs with her father, and once or twice during mushroom season they got swept up in the fury and spent a few nights in the forest, gathering morels and truffles and camping out. But that was all, and always with Papa.
”
”
Liz Braswell (As Old as Time)
“
Our eyes met and the cloudy sky filled with light.
”
”
Jazalyn (Spiritually In Love)
“
As clear as the sky on a cloudy day. Yah, I remember it, alright.
”
”
Randall J. Barsch (The White Oak Casket)
“
I had a wonderful book tour of the New England Coast and will write about some of my adventures during the remaining time of this week. The grip of winter refused to let go as I was welcomed to New England, however some of the trees already showed signs of budding. The weather swung between absolutely beautiful crisp sunny days and grim, cloudy skies with low hanging wet fog. Many of the stores and restaurants were still closed, however everyone was looking forward to nicer days ahead. Mainers treated me as the wayward son of Maine that lost his way and wound up in Florida. Since this frequently happens I was usually forgiven and made to feel at home in our countries most northeastern state. I left copies of my books at many libraries and bookstores and although I didn’t intend to sell books I did bring home many orders. Needless to say it didn’t take long before all the samples I had were gone. In my time on the road I distributed over 250 copies of “Salty & Saucy Maine” and 150 copies of “Suppressed I Rise.” I even sold my 2 samples of “The Exciting Story of Cuba” and “Seawater One.” Every one of my business cards went and I freely distributed over 1,000 bookmarks.
Lucy flew with Ursula and I to Bradley Airport near Hartford, CT. From there we drove to her son’s home in Duxbury, MA. The next day we visited stores in Hyannis and Plymouth introducing my books. I couldn’t believe how nice the people were since I was now more a salesman than a writer. The following day Ursula and I headed north and Lucy went to Nantucket Island where she has family. For all of us the time was well spent. I drove as far as Bar Harbor meeting people and making new friends. Today I filled a large order and ordered more books. I haven’t figured out if it’s work or fun but it certainly keeps me busy. I hope that I can find the time to finish my next book “Seawater Two.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
We headed inside the wood frame building, which also had windows all the way around. It smelled like pine and mountain air even inside. A waiter showed us to a seat by the windows on the east side, where we could watch the sun come up. The cloudy sky cut the glare nicely. I
”
”
E.M. Tippetts (Someone Else's Fairytale (Someone Else's Fairytale, #1))
“
Buddha-nature may be compared with the sun, and individual mind with the sky. Then an Enlightened mind is like the sky in fair weather, when nothing prevents the beams of the sun; while an ignorant mind is like the sky in cloudy weather, when the sun sheds faint light; and an evil mind is like the sky in stormy weather, when the sun seems to be out of existence.
”
”
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
“
The place was a truck stop town. Large 18 wheelers lined the sidewalks and cafes. Giant diesel motors roaring their exhaust into the cloudy night skies. Wearied looking truckers climbed into the cabs like captains of gigantic steel ships. She could not imagine anyone trying to maneuver such large metallic beasts all over the roads of the nation. While the idea of being behind the wheel with nothing but the comfort of the radio, and the isolation were appealing. The thought of fighting all the congested traffic in smog infested industrial waters of choking vapors killed any pleasant dreams of the occupation.
”
”
Jaime Allison Parker (Justice of the Fox)
“
night has enveloped, to give me some relief
now invisible are walls of separation, and thy grief
where blood quenches the thirst
disloyalty is faith last and first
is the religion my beloved belongs to
I beckoned, red and black robed lady with a wand
let me take her by the hand
heard of her about sorcery
her powers useless, and witch now about to succumb
from just a gaze of eyes filled with Kohl of Leila
my nights worthless, body breathless
every moment, feeling restless
be silent and hear, hear me, my cries
don't forget the promise you swore
I have lost my childhood over you
don't know, how these years left me alone
sufferings, separation, theft me alone
I never knew how pain excrutiates
sometimes, i enlivened you my dear
Love is a blessing, and not a fear
in a melancholy cloudy day, I mourn
glistening eyes, weeping sky, and heart torn
I gaze from a window in Kashmir
For a moment, condoling the tragedy, sighing
In sombre time, lifeless, as if dying
”
”
Mirza Sharafat Hussain Beigh
“
I hear the Son and Father saw a Song in his Farmer.
”
”
Petra Hermans (Voor een betere wereld)