Clover Sayings Quotes

I really like you, Midori. A lot.” “How much is a lot?” “Like a spring bear,” I said. “A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.” “You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?” “Yeah. Really nice.” “That’s how much I like you.

What did Fairweller say? When you delivered the note?" "Oh," said Clover, calming a little. "Well...nothing, actually. I sort of...accidentally...tore it to pieces." "Accidentally," Azalea echoed. "And threw it into the fire," said Clover. "Oh.

Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted stiff and dry: 'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.' 'Fare well, I will,' said I. If e'er, where clover whitens The dead man's knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass, Halt by the headstone shading The heart you have not stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word.

Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone shakes from the ripple of a thousand butterflies inside a single stomach. Somewhere someone is packing their bags to see the world with someone else. Somewhere someone is reaching through the most terrifying few feet of space to hold the hand of someone else. Somewhere someone is watching someone else’s chest rise and fall with the breath of slumber. Somewhere someone is pouring ink like blood onto pages fighting to say the truth that has no words. Somewhere someone is waiting patient but exhausted to just be with someone else. Somewhere someone is opening their eyes to a sunrise in someplace they have never seen. Somewhere someone is pulling out the petals twisting the apple stem picking up the heads up penny rubbing the rabbits foot knocking on wood throwing coins into fountains hunting for the only clover with only 4 leaves skipping over the cracks snapping the wishbone crossing their fingers blowing out the candles sending dandelion seeds into the air ushering eyelashes off their thumbs finding the first star and waiting for 11:11 on their clock to spend their wishes on someone else. Somewhere someone is saying goodbye but somewhere someone else is saying hello. Somewhere someone is sharing their first or their last kiss with their or no longer their someone else. Somewhere someone is wondering if how they feel is how the other they feels about them and if both theys could ever become a they together. Somewhere someone is the decoder ring to all of the great mysteries of life for someone else. Somewhere someone is the treasure map. Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone is wrong.

You're walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, 'Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?' So you and the bear spend the whole day in each other's arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?

Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled.

The only time you don’t find a four-leaf clover,” he liked to say, “is when you stop looking for one.

She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “You see a river rushing by without end. You see a sad collection of women with thimbles, all dipping out an inconsequential amount.” He didn’t say anything. “But we’re not trying to empty the Thames,” she told him. “Look at what we’re doing with the water we remove. It doesn’t go to waste. We’re using it to water our gardens, sprout by sprout. We’re growing bluebells and clovers where once there was a desert. All you see is the river, but I care about the roses.

There was nothing left for me to do, but go. Though the things of the world were strong with me still. Such as, for example: a gaggle of children trudging through a side-blown December flurry; a friendly match-share beneath some collision-titled streetlight; a frozen clock, a bird visited within its high tower; cold water from a tin jug; towering off one’s clinging shirt post-June rain. Pearls, rags, buttons, rug-tuft, beer-froth. Someone’s kind wishes for you; someone remembering to write; someone noticing that you are not at all at ease. A bloody ross death-red on a platter; a headgetop under-hand as you flee late to some chalk-and-woodfire-smelling schoolhouse. Geese above, clover below, the sound of one’s own breath when winded. The way a moistness in the eye will blur a field of stars; the sore place on the shoulder a resting toboggan makes; writing one’s beloved’s name upon a frosted window with a gloved finger. Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package; a mouth on yours; a hand on yours; the ending of the day; the beginning of the day; the feeling that there will always be a day ahead. Goodbye, I must now say goodbye to all of it. Loon-call in the dark; calf-cramp in the spring; neck-rub in the parlour; milk-sip at end of day. Some brandy-legged dog proudly back-ploughs the grass to cover its modest shit; a cloud-mass down-valley breaks apart over the course of a brandy-deepened hour; louvered blinds yield dusty beneath your dragging finger, and it is nearly noon and you must decide; you have seen what you have seen, and it has wounded you, and it seems you have only one choice left. Blood-stained porcelain bowl wobbles face down on wood floor; orange peel not at all stirred by disbelieving last breath there among that fine summer dust-layer, fatal knife set down in pass-panic on familiar wobbly banister, later dropped (thrown) by Mother (dear Mother) (heartsick) into the slow-flowing, chocolate-brown Potomac. None of it was real; nothing was real. Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and in this way, brought them forth. And now we must lose them. I send this out to you, dear friends, before I go, in this instantaneous thought-burst, from a place where time slows and then stops and we may live forever in a single instant. Goodbye goodbye good-

Up there, comrades," he would say solemnly, pointing to the sky with his large beak– "up there, just on the other side of that dark cloud that you can see– there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our labours!" He even claimed to have been there on one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting fields of clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges. Many of the animals believed him. Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?

alighted near Hazel and Fiver. “How’s Holly?” asked Hazel. “’E sad,” said Kehaar. “’E say you no come back.” Then he added, “Mees Clover, she ready for mudder.” “That’s good,” said Hazel. “Is anyone doing anything about it?” “Ya, ya, ees all to fight.” “Oh, well, I suppose it’ll sort itself out.

Ilse and I hunted all over the old orchard today for a four-leaved clover and couldn't find one. Then I found one in a clump of clover by the dairy steps tonight when I was straining the milk and never thinking of clovers. Cousin Jimmy says that is the way luck always comes, and it is no use to look for it.

You're going to be okay," Winter said reassuringly. You don't understand," Leven snapped. What don't I understand?" Winters voice was stern. "Sorry you feel bad, but its not like you just met a person so beautiful that now you feel completely worthless." What?" Leven said. "What are you talking about?" Isaw the way you fell over yourselves to stare at her." That was Geth." Don't argue, you two," Geth said. Were not arguing." Leven felt light-headed. No," Winter confirmed. "We're just...." Winter looked at Leven. Leven looked right back at her. Winters cheeks burned red and her green eyes outshone Leven's. The two of them stared at one other. Leven closed his eyes. What are you doing?" Geth asked, concerned. Winter closed her eyes too and leaned closer. Both of them looked panicked and out of control, but it didn't stop them from moving closer and kissing each other. Clovers jaw dropped and he pulled something out of his void just so he could let go of it in shock. Even Geth looked caught off guard, as if he'd been given news that he never thought he'd hear in his lifetime. Leven stumbled back and looked at Winter. His face was almost as red as hers. He looked at Geth and Clover and then back to Winter. Well that was interesting," Clover said happily. I don't know what....." Leven tried to say. No, I......" Winter said. "Its not you.... it's just that my... I think I left something down below.

Because I liked you better than it suits a girl to say, It irked you and I promised to throw the thought away To put the world between us, we parted stiff and dry 'Goodbye' and you: 'Forget me'. 'No fear I will' said I. Now here where clover whitens The dead man's knoll you pass And now tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass Halt by the headstone naming the heart no longer stirred And say the girl that loved you Was one who kept her word.

We were partners in sewing. And partners in luck-hunting: four-leaf clovers, sand-dollar birds, red sea glass, clouds shaped like hearts, the first daffodils of spring, ladybugs, ladies in oversized hats. Best to bet on all the horses, dear, she’d say. Quick, make a wish, she’d say. I bet. I wished. I was her disciple. I still am.

People weren’t usually looking for a commentary to these sorts of revelations. They just needed someone to sit and listen to them without judgment. It’s tempting to try to fix it, to cheer them up. But the truth is, you’ll never find the right thing to say—because the right thing doesn’t exist. The fact that you’re there, and present, says so much more.

His bludgeon's bruk, his drum is tore. For spuds we'll keep the hat he wore And roll in clover on his clay By wather parted from the say.

Nobody ever understands love—anyone who says they do is lying or in denial. We’re all just working it out as we go.

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.

Though he'd given the instructions years ago, I stood outside the gas station and did what I'd been told. Eyes closed. Breathe in. Breathe out. "Now, instead of focusing on all the things that have gone wrong." Grandpa would then say, "think about the next right step forward you could take to move things in a positive direction.

You're walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, "Hi there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?" So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other's arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?

She reached up and rubbed the four-leaf clover charm, saying a quick prayer for faith, hope, love, and luck. Faith that everything would turn out, hope that what was lost could be restored, gratitude that she had found the love of the woman who had born her, and at the end she tacked on a heartfelt request for a little bit of luck to smooth out these next uncertain, scary steps.

You're walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, "Hi there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?" So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other's arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?" "Yeah. Really nice. "That's how much I like you." "That is the best thing I've ever heard.

You don’t believe in leprechauns. A myth you say they be. You don’t believe in pots-o-gold, or four-leaf-clover tea. You don’t believe the rainbow’s end alights on treasured finds. They are illusions meant for fools you say ‘ave lost their minds. You don’t believe in whispering your wishes to the wind, where on St. Patrick’s holiday they blow t’wards Ireland. You don’t believe in magic spells or longings coming true. Yet, head-to-toe you dress in green on Patty’s Day, you do.

The parlour is as I remember it from Council meetings. It carries the scent of smoke and verbena and clover. Cardan himself lounges, his booted feet resting on a stone table carved in the shape of a griffin, claws raised to strike. He gives me a quicksilver conspiratorial grin that seems completely at odds with the way he spoke to me from the throne. 'Well,' he says, patting the couch beside him. 'Didn't you get my letters?' 'What?' I am confused enough that the word comes out like a croak. 'You never replied to a one,' he goes on. 'I began to wonder if you'd misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.' This must be a test. This must be a trap. 'Your Majesty,' I say stiffly. 'I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.' A single eyebrow rises, and his smile deepens. 'I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don't mind.' 'What are you doing?' I say finally, desperately. 'What are you playing at?' He's looking at me as though somehow I am the one who's behaving strangely. 'Jude, you can't really think I don't know it's you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.' I shake my head, reeling. 'That's not possible.

This is what we call a shamrock. It has three leaves. Do you know what it represents?" "Luck? Amelia answered. Lee smiled. "That's what everyone says." Rick shrugged. "Well, I know it's Ireland's emblem." Lee shook his head and said earnestly, "It's much more than that. It represents our religion... who we are. When St. Patrick was trying to teach Christianity here in Ireland, he used this shamrock as an example." Lee pointed to each leaf and said, "This is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost...." Rick still held the clover in his hand. He looked at it and twirled it between his fingers as he said, "I'm calling this the Shamrock Case from now on. I love what it represents.

On Floriography This poem explores the ancient practice of floriography, the coded language of flowers, as a way to express human love through the use of fragrance, colors, and vivid symbolism. By elucidating the phenomenon of florescence alongside the art of floral arrangement, the poem encourages readers to extract poetry and beauty out of a dystopic world. If you often find yourself at a loss for words or don’t know what to say to those you love, just extract poetry out of poverty, this dystopia of civilization rendered fragrant, blossoming onto star-blue fields of loosestrife, heady spools of spike lavender, of edible clover beckoning to say without bruising a jot of dog’s tooth violet, a nib of larkspur notes, or the day’s perfumed reports of indigo in the gloaming— what to say to those whom you love in this world? Use floriography, or as the flower-sellers put it, Say it with flowers. —Indigo, larkspur, star-blue, my dear.

By 2030, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, fish farming will dominate fish supplies. Given how wrong the FAO has been in the past--saying catches were going up when, in fact, they were going down--this statement is worth examining carefully. When you do, you find it to be an observation of previous trends, not a reflection of what could happen or what people might want--in the same way as Red Delicious was once far and away the most popular apple in the United States because it was basically the only apple you could get. The FAO is simply observing that fish farming is the fastest growing form of food production in the world--growing at 9 percent a year and by 12-13 percent in the United States. Nobody is asking us whether we want this. It is just happening. The continued destruction of mangrove swamps in poor countries to provide shrimp for people living in rich countries is simply the market operating in a vacuum untroubled by ethics. It is a reflection of what will go on happening if we do not find ways of exercising any choice in the matter.

I’m sure we can manage to tolerate each other’s company for one meal.” “I won’t say anything about farming. We can discuss other subjects. I have a vast and complex array of interests.” “Such as?” Mr. Ravenel considered that. “Never mind, I don’t have a vast array of interests. But I feel like the kind of man who does.” Amused despite herself, Phoebe smiled reluctantly. “Aside from my children, I have no interests.” “Thank God. I hate stimulating conversation. My mind isn’t deep enough to float a straw.” Phoebe did enjoy a man with a sense of humor. Perhaps this dinner wouldn’t be as dreadful as she’d thought. “You’ll be glad to hear, then, that I haven’t read a book in months.” “I haven’t gone to a classical music concert in years,” he said. “Too many moments of ‘clap here, not there.’ It makes me nervous.” “I’m afraid we can’t discuss art, either. I find symbolism exhausting.” “Then I assume you don’t like poetry.” “No . . . unless it rhymes.” “I happen to write poetry,” Ravenel said gravely. Heaven help me, Phoebe thought, the momentary fun vanishing. Years ago, when she’d first entered society, it had seemed as if every young man she met at a ball or dinner was an amateur poet. They had insisted on quoting their own poems, filled with bombast about starlight and dewdrops and lost love, in the hopes of impressing her with how sensitive they were. Apparently, the fad had not ended yet. “Do you?” she asked without enthusiasm, praying silently that he wouldn’t offer to recite any of it. “Yes. Shall I recite a line or two?” Repressing a sigh, Phoebe shaped her mouth into a polite curve. “By all means.” “It’s from an unfinished work.” Looking solemn, Mr. Ravenel began, “There once was a young man named Bruce . . . whose trousers were always too loose.” Phoebe willed herself not to encourage him by laughing. She heard a quiet cough of amusement behind her and deduced that one of the footmen had overheard. “Mr. Ravenel,” she asked, “have you forgotten this is a formal dinner?” His eyes glinted with mischief. “Help me with the next line.” “Absolutely not.” “I dare you.” Phoebe ignored him, meticulously spreading her napkin over her lap. “I double dare you,” he persisted. “Really, you are the most . . . oh, very well.” Phoebe took a sip of water while mulling over words. After setting down the glass, she said, “One day he bent over, while picking a clover.” Ravenel absently fingered the stem of an empty crystal goblet. After a moment, he said triumphantly, “. . . and a bee stung him on the caboose.” Phoebe almost choked on a laugh. “Could we at least pretend to be dignified?” she begged. “But it’s going to be such a long dinner.

Magnar arranged the Hansen children around Susannah. What was he up to? And could she stop him from making a scene? “Look!” Erik held up a pair of boots made of fur the color of clover honey. “For teacher!” “From the cougar!” “Try them on!” Magnar knelt by the bench, unlaced her worn black boots, and slid the new ones on. He tied the royal blue braiding just below her knees. Susannah pressed her petticoats down in a futile attempt to maintain modesty. “Doesn’t this remind you of Cinderella and the prince, Reverend?” Betsy asked. “Will Susannah turn into a princess?” “A Norwegian,” Ivar suggested with a sly grin. “A woman with warm feet,” Susannah corrected, although how much warmth came from the soft rabbit-fur lining and how much from Magnar’s attention, she could not say. “Takk. Thank you for this most wonderful gift.” Magnar, still kneeling at her feet, whispered something, but his words were lost in the chatter of the children.

Perhaps you think that I am romancing; but I am not a bit. Every word I say is perfectly true, only I have not made the colors half bright or the things half beautiful enough. Colorado is the most beautiful place in the world. [N.B.—Clover had seen but a limited portion of the world so far.] I only wish you could all come out to observe for yourselves that I am not fibbing, though it sounds like it!"            

You could also say aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

Thee asked me where I'd been and how I'd fared. I've been quite a step. . . and fared mighty well the whole ways. If a man'd fared any better'n me it'd unsettled his mind. I've had two eyes and seen sights so pretty there's no words to duplicate them. I've drunk the wine of astonishment. . .standing still, gazing. I've had two feet and no better land anywhere to walk on. Green plush grass in spring, and leaves like a carpet in fall. I've smelled white clover in daytime and quenched my thirst with live spring-water. I've earned my bread in the sweat of my brow, and still do, hard-scrabble like any other man, but making out. I've had for wife the one woman I'd choose, and been free to lift my voice to God. Though mighty backward, I reckon, in making out what He's had to say to me. I've fared so well. . . .that a jot more'n I'd be crying.

You're walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says 'Hi, there little laddy. Want to tumble with me?' So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other's arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?

Be with your feelings, he says. But don’t let the bruises become permanent scars.

A mad woman came in here, saying you killed Dad.

He shifts in his seat, stalls. “If I can’t get an erection, how could I ejaculate?” “Sometimes in sleep, you’re able to … without really … also, it is possible to ejaculate while having a flaccid penis.” “You’ll have to teach me that trick. What’s occasionally again?” “Anywhere from one time on,” I say. He hears my impatience, pouts. “Write down occasionally.” Danny used to be quick to joke, according to his friends, but the accident triggered another man’s temper. He yells at Clover, the kid, the dog. He doesn’t even walk the same, Clover told me. This personality change is why certain lawyers present brain injury cases as fatalities. The client’s first life has ended. “Are you able to go to the bathroom without assistance from anything or anyone?” He waits for a truck commercial to finish before answering. My phone vibrates in my pocket with messages, e-mails. “I’m able to piss but not the other thing,” he says. “You’re able to urinate,” I say. “All the time, occasionally—” “All the time.” He lifts the waistband of his jeans to show me a diaper. “How do you relieve yourself of fecal matter?” He points to a stack of medical supplies in the corner. “I use gloves to remove what I need. Six or seven times a day. I don’t know when I have to go, that sensation or whatever is gone. I keep checking.” He slumps into himself on the chair. He’s crying, shoulders shaking, holding the remote like a sword. I want to tell him that tears are a bother and a waste of time. “This is normal for someone with your injury,” I say. “Most of my clients can’t achieve erections at all.

The groom curses in the bathroom, a dropped metal thing. I have a sister now, too, I think. To Clover, I say, “When he what?” “He waited until I was on the phone,” she says. “I guess he thought that’d be a good way for him to.” “For him to what?” “For him to. He shot himself.” She describes the smell of burning, the smear of blood still on her. The groom draws the curtains, revealing the lake and sky. I clamber under the sheets, still naked. Thousands of miles above, a plane glides out from a bank of navy clouds. Clover says, the nurses. The name of the hospital. The plane reveals itself again. I think of the passengers, feet swinging over plastic seats, watching movie screens above the city’s grid. The conflation of tin and sky. For a moment, Danny is a small thing seen from thousands of miles above. I’m not certain I know him or the woman on the phone who is overcome with tears. I tell her I’ll come to the hospital and hang up. “One of my clients shot himself,” I say. “He’s at the hospital.” “He’s alive?” the groom says. “No,” I say. He frowns. “If he’s dead, he wouldn’t be at the hospital.” “He was still alive when they … Is this the fucking point?” “I don’t know why I’m arguing. I’m sorry.

He says I should stay in the kitchen and work on my recipes.

And it’s like it is all around me all the time, and it sucks away all the light and absorbs all the sound so everything is less bright . . . less fun . . .” She sighs, lowers her face, then lifts it again to return her gaze to the water. “Less, I don’t know, less everything.” Chloe’s eyes leak, tears rolling down her cheeks as she pinches her nose tight, trying to hold them in. “When I think about her,” Mo says, “like now, I try to be happy because I know that’s what she would want and that she is someplace really good, but it’s all the other times, when I’m not thinking about her, that it’s hard, because those are the moments I miss her the most, when I feel so alone it’s like I’m floating in this great big sea or drifting in outer space, like gravity has deserted me or like I’m going to run out of air.” Chloe sniffles, and Mo’s eyes snap to her. “Sorry, Clover,” she says quickly, suddenly realizing Chloe is crying. Chloe shakes her head. “No, it’s okay.” She blots her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I miss her too. All the time.” “I mean, I get it,” Mo says as her own eyes fill. “People die. And I get that I’m still here and that life goes on, and that eventually the hole will get smaller. At least that’s what everyone keeps saying.” “Don’t you wish everyone would just shut up?” Chloe says. Mo nods, looks up, almost smiles, looks back at the ocean. “Exactly. Because it’s not that I don’t get what they’re saying. I do. But right now, the hole, it’s really, really big, and it’s really, really lonely, and I really, really miss her.” For a moment they stand quiet, both of them looking out at the ocean and holding back their emotions, and as I watch them, both so sad, I

When the children returned to the studio, the STUDIO CLOSED sign was still on the door. This didn’t stop the Aldens. “Hi, Hilda! It’s the Aldens,” Jessie yelled as she rapped on the window. Hilda whirled around, startled to see four pairs of eyes staring at her. She opened the door slightly. “What are you doing here? My studio is closed right now.” Violet looked past Hilda. “Oh, so you have the Clover Dodge statue,” she said before the young woman could block her view. “Are you fixing it? I’d love to see how.” Hilda stared at Violet. “I’m not here to teach art classes, Violet. I’m here to…well, I haven’t time to explain.” Henry, who was taller than Hilda, peered right over her shoulder. “Are you fixing the arm from the angel statue, too? Charlotte will be glad you got started on that.” Hilda studied the Aldens’ faces. “What do you mean? William was the one who got me working on the angel statue, not Charlotte. He told me she left most of the decisions up to him.” Hilda pushed the door to keep the children back. “I really must get back to my work. I’ll see you at Skeleton Point later this afternoon.” The Aldens had a lot more to say, but they never got the chance. After she slammed the door, Hilda walked over to the windows and pulled the shade down one by one. The Mystery at Skeleton Point

He stopped, puffing slightly. He studied the shop window for a few seconds, as if he was thinking. Then he faced me. ‘You’re right. Okay? You’re right.’ I stared at him. ‘The Shamrock and Clover. It’s a horrible place. And I know I’ve not been the greatest to work for. But all I can tell you is that, for every miserable directive I give you, my nuts are being squeezed ten times harder by Head Office. My wife hates me because I’m never home. The suppliers hate me because I have to cut their margins every single week because of pressure from shareholders. My regional manager says I’m underperforming on units shifted and if I don’t pull it out of the bag I’m going to get sent to the North Wales Passenger Ferry branch. At which point my wife will actually leave me. And I won’t blame her. ‘I hate managing people. I have the social skills of a lamppost, which is why I can’t hang on to anyone. Vera only stays because she has the skin of a rhino and I suspect she’s secretly after my job. So there – I’m sorry. I’d actually quite like to give you your job back because, whatever I said earlier, you were pretty good. Customers liked you.

Life isn’t static, little brother,” Goji says. “It’s constantly shifting and moving. Our job is to learn to dance with the changes and alter our lives accordingly. If everything stayed the same we’d never grow.

He starts to turn away, then stops, scratching at his beard, considering something, before bending low in the grass and plucking something from the soil. He holds it out in his palm. "Good luck, giant," he says, nodding. In his palm rests a tiny green leaf. "It's a four-leaf clover," he explains with a wink. "And one that's been plucked from inside St. Patrick Town is particularly lucky." I take the green clover from his palm and hold it up to the clouded sky, marveling at its four perfectly rounded leaves. It smells of soil and rain, resting delicately between my fingertips. And it looks just like the clover on the doorway into this realm. "Thank you," I say to him, but when I glance up, he's already vanished into the thick green spruce trees and falling raindrops.

We are doing 55 on Indiana 65. Jasper County. Flooded fields. Iroquois River spread way out, wide and brown as a Hershey bar. Distances in this glacier-flattened planed-down ground-level ground aren't blue, but whitish, and the sky is whitish-blue. It's in the eighties at 9:30 in the morning, the air is soft and humid, and the wind darkens the flooded fields between rows of oaks. Watch Your Speed - We Are. Severely clean white farmhouses inside square white fences painted by Tom Sawyer yesterday produce a smell of dung. A rich and heavy smell of dung on the southwest wind. Can shit be heady? La merde majestueuse. This is the "Old Northwest." Not very old, not very north, not very west. And in Indiana there are no Indians. Wabash River right up to the road and the oaks are standing ten feet out in the brown shadowmottled flood, but the man at the diesel station just says: You should of seen her yesterday. The essence is motion being in motion moving on not resting at a point: and so by catching at points and letting them go again without recurrence or rhyme or rhythm I attempt to suggest or imitate that essence the essence of which is that you cannot catch it. Of course there are other continuities: the other aspect of the essence of moving on. The county courthouses. Kids on bikes. White frame houses with high sashed windows. Dipping telephone wires, telephone poles. The names of the dispossessed. The redwing blackbird singing to you from fencepost to fencepost. Dave and Shelley singing "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" on the radio. The yellow weedy clover by the road. The flowering grasses. And the crow, not the Indian, the bird, you seen one crow you seen 'em all, kronk kronk. CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO TREAT YOURSELF TO THE BEST on an old plank barn, the letters half worn off, and that's a continuity, not only in space but time: my California in the thirties, & I at six years old would read the sign and imagine a Pony Express rider at full gallop eating a candy cigarette. Lafayette Greencastle And the roadsign points: Left to Indianapolis Right to Brazil. Now there's some choice.

New trout, having never seen rain on the river, rise eagerly to ripples on the Mink. Some windows close against the moist and some open for the music. Rain slips and slides along hawsers and chains and ropes and cables and gladdens the cells of mosses and weighs down the wings of moths. It maketh the willow shiver its fingers and thrums on doors of dens in the fens. It falls on hats and cats and trucks and ducks and cars and bars and clover and plover. It grayeth the sand on the beach and fills thousands of flowers to the brim. It thrills worms and depresses damselflies. Slides down every window rilling and murmuring. Wakes the ancient mud and mutter of the swamp, which has been cracked and hard for months. Falls gently on leeks and creeks and bills and rills and the last shriveled blackberries like tiny dried purple brains on the bristles of bushes. On the young bear trundling through a copse of oaks in the woods snorffling up acorns. On ferns and fawns, cubs and kits, sheds and redds. On salmon as long as your arm thrashing and roiling in the river. On roof and hoof, doe and hoe, fox and fence, duck and muck. On a slight man in a yellow slicker crouched by the river with his recording equipment all covered against the rain with plastic wrap from the grocery store and after he figures out how to get the plastic from making crinkling sounds when he turns the machine on he settles himself in a little bed of ferns and says to the crow huddled patiently in rain, okay, now, here we go, Oral History Project, what the rain says to the river as the wet season opens, project number …something or other … where’s the fecking start button? …I can’t see anything … can you see a green light? yes? is it on? damn my eyes … okay! there it is! it’s working! rain and the river! here we go!

As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could've spoken her thoughts, it would've been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race...If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the week as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech.

As Clover looked down the hillside, her eyes filled with tears. If she could've spoken her thoughts, it would've been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race...If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the week as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech.

ago so Dad had these workmen come to retile it. They put the ladder up and forgot to take it away again. Lots of green moss has grown back on the roof now, which makes it very soft and comfortable, like a green carpet. I like to sit with my legs swinging down, peering out over next-door’s garden. Not number four next door, where Cecy lives. I mean number eight the other side of us – the sad house. Old Mrs Burton lives there. At least I think she does. No one’s seen her for years and years. She used to be this perfectly ordinary old lady when Mr Burton was still around. They invited Clover and me in for tea several times, after Mum died. We didn’t really like to go, because we didn’t know what to say to them and there was nothing very much to do. Mrs Burton had a collection of little china pots with painted lids and she let us look at each one, but we weren’t allowed to touch because they were precious and we were only little. The tea was very strange too. We had to drink out of cups on saucers, whereas we were used to mugs, so we found it difficult. Then there was a plate of thin bread and butter to eat. Not even any jam. Just a piece of bread and butter. Mrs Burton said if we ate it all up we would be allowed cakes. So we chewed valiantly and then Mr Burton went into the kitchen and came back with a small plate of little iced cakes. He called them fancies. There were two yellow and two pink. I chose yellow and Mrs Burton and Mr Burton took the pink ones. I saw Clover’s face. I knew just how much she wanted a pink one too. She didn’t eat her yellow one properly; she just bit all the icing off the top and licked the little bit of cream inside. Mr and Mrs Burton weren’t cross with her. They shook their heads and patted her curls and said she was a lovely little girlie. ‘A real Goldilocks,’ said Mr Burton. They

people often felt the need to say something as they were dying, something of significance—as if they realized it was their last chance to leave a mark on the world. Usually those last messages fit into one of three categories: things they’d wish they’d done differently, things they’d learned along the way, or secrets they’d kept that they were finally ready to reveal.

I loved the idea of preparing someone for a journey rather than simply saying goodbye.

closure was just as valuable for the living. Being denied the chance to say goodbye to a loved one left stubborn emotional scars.

But as far as I could tell, I love you was one of the hardest things to say in the English language. Not for its pronunciation (synecdoche held that title, in my opinion), but for the weight it carried.

They say that you were the love of his life—that no one ever came close to you.

I love how your moral compass rarely wavers, even when I try to corrupt it. A very admirable personality trait. I wish I could say I was as decent as you all the time. But, somehow, bending the

The second day of Katy's visit was devoted to the luncheon-party of which Rose had written in her letter, and which was meant to be a reunion or "side chapter" of the S.S.U.C. Rose had asked every old Hillsover girl who was within reach. There was Mary Silver, of course, and Esther Dearborn, both of whom lived in Boston; and by good luck Alice Gibbons happened to be making Esther a visit, and Ellen Gray came in from Waltham, where her father had recently been settled over a parish, so that all together they made six of the original nine of the society; and Quaker Row itself never heard a merrier confusion of tongues than resounded through Rose's pretty parlor for the first hour after the arrival of the guests. There was everybody to ask after, and everything to tell. The girls all seemed wonderfully unchanged to Katy, but they professed to find her very grown up and dignified. "I wonder if I am," she said. "Clover never told me so. But perhaps she has grown dignified too." "Nonsense!" cried Rose; "Clover could no more be dignified than my baby could. Mary Silver, give me that child this moment! I never saw such a greedy thing as you are; you have kept her to yourself at least a quarter of an hour, and it isn't fair." "Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way. "We only need Mrs. Nipson to make our little party complete," went on Rose, "or dear Miss Jane! What has become of Miss Jane, by the way? Do any of you know?" "Oh, she is still teaching at Hillsover and waiting for her missionary. He has never come back. Berry Searles says that when he goes out to walk he always walks away from the United States, for fear of diminishing the distance between them." "What a shame!" said Katy, though she could not

Tank sighed, petting the trembling back as Clover sobbed his complaints, melting into him—the very man who’d been the source of his pain Beyond the weak glow of the lamp, Drake manifested his discontent by creating physical distance, but regardless of what he kept saying during their discussion earlier, the hypocritical bastard wanted Clover too. He wouldn’t have stuck around to watch. He wouldn’t have taken those two steps closer to the sweet, milky candy that was Clover.

This is the worst,” Miller says. We’re a foot apart, and he doesn’t touch me. “There is no silver lining. This is impossible, and you’re going to get through it.” He doesn’t tell me it’s okay. He doesn’t say: but you’ll get through it. He gives me the gift of the truth—that if I do make it past this, it will be an and. I will be all right, and this will devastate me. Both things true at once.

Again, we wake, our neighbor yelling at his son, poor kid standing by the porch. Tracking mud, he backs from the shouting, his father's raised fist. Later, I will see him sulking near our feed shed, knotting an old piece of garden hose, kicking dust. I'll smile, ask if he's OK. But right now, I listen to John's quiet breathing beside me. Faith, they say, is Abraham asked to slaughter his boy on a mountaintop. But sometimes it's just the peeling shed in gray weather, the leather harness softened, then gone rough. All day today, the back pond will teem with carp. The clover will brighten. For now, we lie together into late morning. Some days, it is enough.

You think you know a place,” he says. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, but it’s like with camerawork. You just adjust your position, “Cameron and the other guys take their smoke breaks up here,” he explains. The two of us sit down, and for a few minutes we just live here in this moment without a word between us. Finally I break the silence. “How is it I’ve lived here all my life and I’m just now seeing this view of Clover City?” A soft smile plays at Malik’s lips. “You think you know a place,” he says. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, but it’s like with camerawork. You just adjust your position, even slightly, and suddenly you’re telling a different story. Seeing a new world.

What worries me is that common sense seems to be dwindling to the point of extinction. The minds of men whom our contemporaries consider educated are regressing to the level of the most ignorant peasant on a Mediaeval manor. There is something terrifying in the spectacle of men who hold degrees in the genuine sciences and assemble vast arrays of elaborate scientific equipment to “prove” the authenticity of a “Holy Shroud,” and thus make it necessary to assemble more equipment and conduct long and painstaking research to prove what any half-way educated and rational man would have known from the very first. And the same sotie is performed whenever some prestidigitator claims that he can bend spoons by thinking about them. Is there any limit to the gullibility of “highly qualified scientists”? I sometimes have a vision of scores of great scientists and tons of elaborate and very expensive laboratory equipment assembled about a pond into which they drop horsehairs to determine whether the percentage that turn into tadpoles is significant by the binomial formula. If hairs from Standard-breeds don’t work, get some from Appaloosas. Then try Percherons and Arabians: their hairs may make tadpoles better. And no one can say that the hairs of horses do not turn into tadpoles until you have made exhaustive scientific tests of hairs from every known breed of horses – and then someone will turn up to prove that the negative results are all wrong, because tadpoles come from the hairs of horses who eat the variety of four-leaved clover that grows in a hidden valley in Afghanistan, so the assembled scientists and their equipment will start all over.

War was hell and magic wasn't real. I didn't need to be some famous man to say that. — Alice