Moon Crystals Quotes

If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

The night above. We two. Full moon. I started to weep, you laughed. Your scorn was a god, my laments moments and doves in a chain. The night below. We two. Crystal of pain. You wept over great distances. My ache was a clutch of agonies over your sickly heart of sand. Dawn married us on the bed, our mouths to the frozen spout of unstaunched blood. The sun came through the shuttered balcony and the coral of life opened its branches over my shrouded heart. - Night of Sleepless Love

I almost miss the sound of your voice but know that the rain outside my window will suffice for tonight. I’m not drunk yet, but we haven’t spoken in months now and I wanted to tell you that someone threw a bouquet of roses in the trash bin on the corner of my street, and I wanted to cry because, because — well, you know exactly why. And, I guess I’m calling because only you understand how that would break my heart. I’m running out of things to say. My gas is running on empty. I’ve stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra. I wanted to tell you that I’m not afraid of being moved anymore; Not afraid of this heart packing up its things and flying transcontinental with only a wool coat and a pocket with a folded-up address inside. I’ve saved up enough money to disappear. I know you never thought the day would come. Do you remember when we said goodbye and promised that it was only for then? It’s been years since I last saw you, years since we last have spoken. Sometimes, it gets quiet enough that I can hear the cicadas rubbing their thighs against each other’s. I’ve forgotten almost everything about you already, except that your skin was soft, like the belly of a peach, and how you would laugh, making fun of me for the way I pronounced almonds like I was falling in love with language.

And the needles of the pine trees, freshly washed to a deep, rich green, shimmered with droplets that blinked like clear crystals.

Far away beyond the pine-woods,' he answered, in a low dreamy voice, 'there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.

Women need a reason for having sex, men just need a place

I'm running out of things to say. I've stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you and could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, an orchestra.

Far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals. Tales laid in tiles upon the floors, bits of plot worn away by passing feet. Legends carved in crystal and hung from chandeliers. Stories catalogued and cared for and revered. Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them.

It is a fine thing, to set your sights on crystal towers and golden thrones," Hans Peter said quietly. "But first you had better see what lurks within those towers, and what sits on those thrones.

Everyday's a honeymoon. Cuz darling, I love you to the moon.

… I am the sound of rain on the roof. I also happen to be the shooting star, the evening paper blowing down an alley, and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table. I am also the moon in the trees and the blind woman's tea cup. But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. You are still the bread and the knife. You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod, one night sailed off in a wooden shoe; Sailed off on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew. "Where are you going and what do you wish?" the old moon asked the three. "We've come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea. Nets of silver and gold have we," said Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod.

A round moon stood low in the sky, pale still, and smudged with shadow, and thin at one edge like a worn coin. There was a scatter of small stars, with here and there the shepherd stars herding them, and across from the moon one great star alone, burning white. The shadows were long and soft on the seeding grasses. A

The idea of love walked along the water and her gaze was full of absence and her eyes spat lighting. The impressionable evening received by turns the imprints of grasses, clouds, bodies, and wore crazy astronomical designs. The idea of love walked straight ahead without seeing anything; she was wearing tiny isosceles mirrors whose perfect assemblage was amazing. They were so many images of fish tails, when, by their angelic nature, they answer the promise one might make of always finding each other again. Finding each other again even in the depths of a forest, where the thread of a star is an articulation more silent than life, the dawn a liquor stronger than blood. Who is lost, who truly wanders off when a cup of coffee is steaming in the fog and waiters dressed in snow circulate patiently on the surface of floors whose desired height can be indicated with one's hands? Who? A solitary man whom the idea of love has just left and who tucks in his spirit like an imaginary bed. The man falls all the same and in the next room, under the moon-white verandah, a woman rises whom the idea of love has abandoned. The gravel weeps outside, a rain of glass is falling in which we recognize small chains, tears in which we have time to see ourselves, mirror tears, shards of windows, singular crystals like the ones we witness in our hand on awakening, leaves and the faded petals of those roses that once embelished certain distillery bottles. It's just that the idea of love, it seems angry with love. This is how it began.

Moon-Watcher and his companions had no recollection of what they had seen, after the crystal had ceased to cast its hypnotic spell over their minds and to experiment with their bodies. The next day, as they went out to forage, they passed it with scarcely a second thought; it was now part of the disregarded background of their lives. They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important.

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin's Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes' mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin's folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge's fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin's halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. -The Song of Durin

the Nightingale flew to the Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned down and listened. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her.

Last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra.

The sky was black, sprinkled with crystals of salt. The moon made polite conversation. The trees stood up and waved.

My favorite time is now, like tonight, under a full moon. When a thousand crystals are sparkling at us. It's almost magical, isn’t it?

Can't think of anything I'd rather do than dine with you under the crystal moon.

And as I walked by the shallow crystal stream I saw unwonted ripples tipped with yellow light, as if those placid waters were drawn on in resistless currents to strange oceans that are not in the world. Silent and sparkling, bright and baleful, those moon-cursed waters hurried I knew not whither; whilst from the embowered banks white lotos-blossoms fluttered one by one in the opiate night-wind and dropped despairingly into the stream, swirling away horribly under the arched, carven bridge, and staring back with the sinister resignation of calm, dead faces.

Gareth: I tilted her chin up, her breath teasing my lips. "I need to go." Her throat moved as she swallowed. "No, you don't..." My will cracked, I pulled her close and kissed her. Nadya: The second his lips brushed mine, my pulse raced, and somewhere deep inside of me the wolf growled. I wasn't sure how I understood her, but she made her intent crystal clear. Gareth was ours.

I grow into these mountains like a moss. I am bewitched. The blinding snow peaks and the clarion air, the sound of earth and heaven in the silence, the requiem birds, the mythic beasts, the flags, great horns, and old carved stones, the silver ice in the black river, the Kang, the Crystal Mountain. Also, I love the common miracles-the murmur of my friends at evening, the clay fires of smudgy juniper, the coarse dull food, the hardship and simplicity, the contentment of doing one thing at a time… gradually my mind has cleared itself, and wind and sun pour through my head, as through a bell. Though we talk little here, I am never lonely; I am returned into myself. In another life-this isn’t what I know, but how I feel- these mountains were my home; there is a rising of forgotten knowledge, like a spring from hidden aquifers under the earth. To glimpse one’s own true nature is a kind of homegoing, to a place East of the Sun, West of the Moon- the homegoing that needs no home, like that waterfall on the supper Suli Gad that turns to mist before touching the earth and rises once again to the sky.

How the moon triumphs through the endless nights! How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel Their thick processions of supernal lights Around the blue vault obdurate as steel! And men regard with passionate awe and yearning The mighty marching and the golden burning, And think the heavens respond to what they feel. Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream Are glorified from vision as they pass The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream; Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass To restless crystals; cornice dome and column Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn; Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass. With such a living light these dead eyes shine, These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze We read a pity, tremulous, divine, Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays: Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender; There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze.

Her Afro made of white clouds; see the rain drops dangle like little crystals, jewels made of the finest freshwater, eyes like the silver moon. She is the maiden of my dreams, watch her glisten, for she is many stars…

I want you to know one thing.   You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.   Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.   If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.   If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.   But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

The dream clung to her. Her sleep had been full of Jupiter ever since the survey last week: that overwhelming, unstoppable girth; the swirling patterns of the atmosphere, dark belts and light stripes rolling in circular rivers of ammonia crystal clouds; every shade of orange in the spectrum, from soft, sand-coloured regions to vivid streams of molten vermilion; the breathtaking speed of a ten-hour orbit, whipping around and around the planet like a spinning top; the opaque surface, simmering and roaring in century-old tempests. And the moons! The ancient, pockmarked skin of Callisto and the icy crust of Ganymede. The rusty cracks of Europa’s subterranean oceans. The volcanoes of Io, magma fireworks leaping up from the surface.

The stars were out and bright, and the moon was close to full. There were no UFOs hovering over the trailer or anywhere else that I could see. It might seem strange to be so nonchalant about it all, but you get used to the weird if you live in Crystal Falls.

The whole game is undone, this nightmare of evolution, and you are exactly where you were prior to the beginning of the whole show. With a sudden shock of the utterly obvious, you recognize your own Original Face, the face you had prior to the Big Bang, the face of utter Emptiness that smiles as all creation and sings as the entire Kosmos—and it is all undone in that primal glance, and all that is left is the smile, and the reflection of the moon on a quiet pond, late on a crystal clear night.

I know a flower that grows in the valley, none knows it but I. It has purple leaves, and a star in its heart, and its juice is as white as milk. Should’st thou touch with this flower the hard lips of the Queen, she would follow thee all over the world. Out of the bed of the King she would rise, and over the whole world she would follow thee. And it has a price, pretty boy, it has a price. What d’ye lack? What d’ye lack? I can pound a toad in a mortar, and make broth of it, and stir the broth with a dead man’s hand. Sprinkle it on thine enemy while he sleeps, and he will turn into a black viper, and his own mother will slay him. With a wheel I can draw the Moon from heaven, and in a crystal I can show thee Death. What d’ye lack? What d’ye lack? Tell me thy desire, and I will give it thee, and thou shalt pay me a price, pretty boy, thou shalt pay me a price.

I dreamed I stood upon a little hill, And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed Like a waste garden, flowering at its will With buds and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed Black and unruffled; there were white lilies A few, and crocuses, and violets Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun. And there were curious flowers, before unknown, Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades Of Nature's willful moods; and here a one That had drunk in the transitory tone Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades Of grass that in an hundred springs had been Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, And watered with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous air of Heaven. Beyond, abrupt, A grey stone wall. o'ergrown with velvet moss Uprose; and gazing I stood long, all mazed To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair. And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across The garden came a youth; one hand he raised To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes Were clear as crystal, naked all was he, White as the snow on pathless mountains frore, Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes A marble floor, his brow chalcedony. And he came near me, with his lips uncurled And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth, And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend, Come I will show thee shadows of the world And images of life. See from the South Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.' And lo! within the garden of my dream I saw two walking on a shining plain Of golden light. The one did joyous seem And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were. But he that was his comrade walked aside; He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.' Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.' Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will, I am the love that dare not speak its name.

Truth in art is not any correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to the form itself; it is no echo coming from a hollow hill anymore than it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to the moon and Narcissus to Narcissus.

Of all the queer and fabulous denizens of the Shivering Sea, however, the greatest are the ice dragons. These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common dragons (if any dragon can truly be said to be common) breathe flame, ice dragons supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat.

The salty fluid of life... the crystal-clear blood of the earth... That's what it is, Farhad. Tears. - Nitish

I want to make it crystal fucking clear that you’re it for me… I screwed up before. Big time. I own it. And now I’m going to win you back.

And if anyone had told him that one day he would travel to worlds beyond this one, and experience the past, present and future as one, he would have said they were crazy.

It seems to me that I have lived alone— Alone, as one that liveth in a dream: As light on coldest marble, or the gleam Of moons eternal on a land of stone, The dawns have been to me. I have but known The silence of a frozen land extreme— A sole attending silence, all supreme As is the sea’s enormous monotone. Upon the icy desert of my days, No bright mirages are, but iron rays Of dawn relentless, and the bitter light Of all-revealing noon.**** Alone, I crave The friendly clasp of finite arms, to save My spirit from the ravening Infinite.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose, Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal-shining quiver, Give unto the flying hart Space to breath, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night- Goddess excellently bright.

MARBLE STEPS COMPLAINT White dew grows on the marble steps, And in the long night, soaks into my stockings. But now I let the crystal curtain down, And gaze through it at the autumn moon.

Each in His Own Tongue A fire mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, A jellyfish and a saurian, And caves where the cave men dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty, And a face turned from the clod — Some call it Evolution, And others call it God. A haze on the far horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And all over upland and lowland The charm of the goldenrod — Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. Like tides on a crescent sea beach, When the moon is new and thin, Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in; Come from the mystic ocean, Whose rim no foot has trod — Some of us call it Longing, And others call it God. A picket frozen on duty, A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the rood; And millions who, humble and nameless, The straight, hard pathway plod — Some call it Consecration, And others call it God.

Her love is not flawless, a solitaire sparkling from a smooth hand. Rather it reminds me of a geode - rough and worn by time yet cracked, occasionally, to reveal a vibrant cluster of crystals.

if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you

I thought the trees down in Lady Zelana’s country were about as big as a tree could get,” he said, “but the ones around here are so tall that they probably tickle the moon’s tummy when she goes by.

What about those of us who just don’t fit in, who feel as if we were born on the Wrong Planet, or in the wrong time period? Where did we come from? Is this a whole counter-culture that’s new to the planet, moving us forward? Have we finally reached the Age of Aquarius? Is it now! Is the moon in the seventh house? Has Jupiter finally aligned with Mars? And are we right now getting ready to see mystic crystal revelation where love will steer the stars? Afraid not. There have always been people who see the world differently from everyone else. And there always will be. If you’re one of the ‘chosen ones’ then you come from a long line of Gypsies, tramps and thieves, of rebels and revolutionaries, of pagans, infidels and sceptics. This is your heritage, and you have much to be proud of

Shadow boxes become poetic theater or settings wherein are metamorphosed the elements of a childhood pastime. The fragile, shimmering globules become the shimmering but more enduring planets—a connotation of moon and tides—the association of water less subtle, as when driftwood pieces make up a proscenium to set off the dazzling white of sea foam and billowy cloud crystallized in a pipe of fancy.

surmised that pressure from sunlight creates these tails by blowing dust and ice crystals in comets away from the sun. The prescient Jules Verne anticipated light sails in From the Earth to the Moon when he wrote, “There will some day appear velocities far greater than these, of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agent … we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars.

Settling” is a coarse way of saying “adjusting my expectations,” and I think that gets a bad rap. Dude, I would rather settle than be “chronically unfulfilled due to my outsize desires.” I don’t mean that you should marry someone you hate just because they won’t go away, but I do think it’s worth examining what you actually want while being honest about what is important to you. Then it won’t feel like such a compromise, you know? On top of that, it’s totally unfair to make a flesh-and-bone person compete against an imaginary ideal that was imprinted on you when you were too young to understand what was happening. Shit, growing up I wanted to marry the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. A strong, virile creature who read tons of books and could fuck up a wolf ? Yes please! Sign me up! I could’ve lain awake every night waiting for Mufasa to save me from a wildebeest stampede in a gorge, but do I climb into bed next to a fucking lion? No, bitch, because I am realistic. Instead, I married this person who makes her own kombucha and charges her crystals under the new moon. Girl, adapt!

A moon of unsurpassable brilliance flooded the silent landscape with a cruel glare of greenish light, which traced sharp inky shadows of the trees on the rounded white folds. The snow crystals caught and reflected the moonlight upon a myriad facets until I appeared to be walking in a world of sparkling diamonds. The frightful stillness of the woodland at midnight was almost startling – everything seemed to be frost-bound and nerveless. Even the icy air seemed frozen into immobility. The crisp crunch of my footfall appeared to be an unpardonable intrusion, while the scars they made upon the smooth field of scintillating white seemed a positive sacrilege.

Aunt Elizabeth came in. “Emily, the rock-crystal goblet! Your Grandmother Murray’s goblet! And you have broken it!” “No, really. Aunty dear, I didn’t. Mr. Greaves — Mr. Mark Delage Greaves did it. He threw it at the stove.” “Threw it at the stove!” Aunt Elizabeth was staggered. “Why did he throw it at the stove?” “Because I wouldn’t marry him,” said Emily. “Marry him! Did you ever see him before?” “Never.” Aunt Elizabeth gathered up the fragments of the crystal goblet and went out quite speechless. There was — there must be — something wrong with a girl when a man proposed marriage to her at first meeting. And hurled heirloom goblets at inoffensive stoves.

Sometimes on late summer nights, when the sky is perfect and our parents are in a good enough mood to let us, we meet up to take a midnight walk through the field beyond our houses. It’s always peaceful and quiet, a perfect time to stargaze into the velvety black sky dotted with millions of crystals that make up the Milky Way. The warm summer night’s breeze ripples the tall grass and makes a small brushing sound that echoes throughout the valley. In the distance, the Appalachian Mountains loom like giant gray ghosts cast in the silvery glow of the midnight Moon. They wrap around our little valley like a scarf, and the hollers that seem close in the daytime seem like a lifetime away in the dark. We become engulfed by the thousands of fireflies that dance around in the steamy mist that radiates off of the ground because of the humidity. Those are the beautiful midsummer nights in Valia Springs that I will never forget.

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look, at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

— If love wants you; if you’ve been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills, with warm blood and cold. With feathers and scales. Under the hot gloom of the forest canopy you’ll want to breathe with the spiral calls of birds, while your lashing tail still gropes for the waes. You’ll try to haul your weight from simple sea to gravity of land. Caught by the tide, in the snail-slip of your own path, for moments suffocating in both water and air. If love wants you, suddently your past is obsolete science. Old maps, disproved theories, a diorama. The moment our bodies are set to spring open. The immanence that reassembles matter passes through us then disperses into time and place: the spasm of fur stroked upright; shocked electrons. The mother who hears her child crying upstairs and suddenly feels her dress wet with milk. Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew before we were loved there, the places left fallow when we’re born, waiting for experience to find its way into us. The night crossing, on deck in the dark car. On the beach wehre night reshaped your face. In the lava fields, carbon turned to carpet, moss like velvet spread over splintered forms. The instant spray freezes in air above the falls, a gasp of ice. We rise, hearing our names called home through salmon-blue dusk, the royal moon an escutcheon on the shield of sky. The current that passes through us, radio waves, electric lick. The billions of photons that pass through film emulsion every second, the single submicroscopic crystal struck that becomes the phograph. We look and suddenly the world looks back. A jagged tube of ions pins us to the sky. — But if, like starlings, we continue to navigate by the rear-view mirror of the moon; if we continue to reach both for salt and for the sweet white nibs of grass growing closest to earth; if, in the autumn bog red with sedge we’re also driving through the canyon at night, all around us the hidden glow of limestone erased by darkness; if still we sish we’d waited for morning, we will know ourselves nowhere. Not in the mirrors of waves or in the corrading stream, not in the wavering glass of an apartment building, not in the looming light of night lobbies or on the rainy deck. Not in the autumn kitchen or in the motel where we watched meteors from our bed while your slow film, the shutter open, turned stars to rain. We will become indigestible. Afraid of choking on fur and armour, animals will refuse the divided longings in our foreing blue flesh. — In your hands, all you’ve lost, all you’ve touched. In the angle of your head, every vow and broken vow. In your skin, every time you were disregarded, every time you were received. Sundered, drowsed. A seeded field, mossy cleft, tidal pool, milky stem. The branch that’s released when the bird lifts or lands. In a summer kitchen. On a white winter morning, sunlight across the bed.

Shepherds buried the sun in the naked forest. With a net of hair A fisherman hauled the moon from the icy pond. The pale man dwells In a blue crystal, his cheek at rest against his stars, Or he bows his head in crimson sleep. But the black flight of birds always touches The watcher, the holiness of blue flowers; The nearby silence thinks forgotten things, extinguished angels. Again the brow turns night in moonlit stone; A radiant youth, The sister appears in autumn and black putrefaction.

THE BLUE DRESS Her blue dress is a silk train is a river is water seeps into the cobblestone steps of my sleep, is still raining is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles is goodbye in a flooded, antique room, is goodbye in a room of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi river is a hallway, is leaks like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open to waterfalls is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a currant come to carry me in its arms through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets is the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea.

The snow that has been falling for some time has finally lifted, and a fierce wind blows. Long icicles hang from everything, heaps of glittering snow lie here and there on the ground, and all the roofs are white with it... The landscape is brightly lit by a pre-dawn moon, and the whole scene is utterly delightful. The houses seem roofed in sheets of silver, while icicles hanging everywhere along the eaves, some long, some short, as if specially arranged there for display, put one in mind of waterfalls of crystal.

Even MASON froze a moment. “Bridger built a satellite that built a robot capable of blasting missiles halfway to the Moon?” Cato smiled gently, so gently. “Bridger made resurrection potions, and a magic crystal ball, and Achilles. This is marginally less impossible.

Lola.” She looked up at me. “I won’t let you go to prison for something you didn’t do. I promise. So don’t worry. I’ve got it. Syn too. He’s waiting in the lobby. And Blossom’s been helping us with spells. We’ve got it. You’re not a murderer and no one is going to put you away.” Hazel to Lola.

To mix the brew that wakes Death sleep Fill one spread hand with silver deep. In hungry pool moons raise their heads: Pluck one and add the tears it sheds. Stir slowly with new fighter's quill, Three times, no more, and let it still. Add venom from your greatest fear-- One drop--and then the truth is clear.

The Body As Braille” He tells me “your back is so beautiful.” He traces my spine with his hand. I’m burning like the white ring around the moon. “A witch’s moon,” dijo mi abuela. The schools call it “a reflection of ice crystals.” It’s a storm brewing in the cauldron of the sky. I’m in love but won’t tell him if it’s omens or ice.

It is not Beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair. Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips that seem on roses fed, Your breasts where Cupid trembling lies, Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed. ...Give me, instead of beauty's bust, A tender heart, a loyal mind, Which with temptation I could trust, Yet never linked with error find. One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes. Like the care-burdened honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose. My earthly comforter! whose love So indefeasible might be, That when my spirit won above Hers could not stay for sympathy.

The brain of the modern human is no longer capable of understanding reality directly. It used to be that a person lived, looked toward the horizon, howled at the moon, and formed his conceptions, however biased, based on his own experiences and observations. There used to be this thing called independent learning. Not anymore. They crystallize our brains like ice from water. Imagine how slowly, starting in childhood, your brain is crystallized for you, forming your conception of reality. We could even determine a unit of currency for all humanity, ‘the value of one concept.’ Everyone would have their own change purse, so to speak, and the coins in it, though of various values, quantities, styles, and metals, would all be from a single mint.

three pale yellow moons floating amid black stars, and a stunted forest along the banks of a black lake that drew the eyes to a castle, huge and decayed, perilously perched on an outcrop of crystal. And although it was far off, a figure clearly stood there on the highest battlement, long black robes flapping in the breeze. It turned towards me, a wrinkled yellow mask with no features.

I could actually see and hear my tears dripping down into the white pool of moonlight, where they were sucked in as if they had always been part of the light. As they fell, the tears caught the light of the moon and sparkled like beautiful crystals. Then I noticed that my shadow was crying too, shedding clear, sharp shadow tears. Have you ever seen the shadows of tears, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? They’re nothing like ordinary shadows. Nothing at all. They come here from some other, distant world, especially for our hearts. Or maybe not. It struck me then that the tears my shadow was shedding might be the real thing, and the tears that I was shedding were just shadows. You don’t get it, I’m sure, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. When a naked seventeen-year-old girl is shedding tears in the moonlight, anything can happen. It’s true.

Far away beyond the pine-woods," he answered, in a low, dreamy voice, "there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers." Virginia's eyes grew dim with tears, and she hid her face in her hands. "You mean the Garden of Death," she whispered. "Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.

Nothing else is known of the life of this girl. Yet what does it matter? For the sublimity of life culminates in the most precious moment of inspiration. Man will make his life worth living, if he tosses a wave aloft high up into the starry sky, o'er life's dark main of worldly cares, to mirror in its crystal foam the light of the moon yet to rise. Therefore, are not those who know the last of Lorenzo those who know the whole of her life?

Lorca’s Spain: A Homage” Beginning with olive trees. Shadows. Beginning with roosters. Crystal. Beginning with castanets & almonds. Fishes. This is a homage to Spain. This mists dogs. This silences rubber. This is Saturn. Beginning with yellow. Eclipse. Beginning with needles. Insomnia. Beginning with baskets. The Moon. Who is naked? The imagination (wrote Lorca) is seared. This is a homage to water. Beginning & end.

the glaring sunlight. I panicked because Gran didn’t know that I was in love with a vampire—nobody knew that—so how was I supposed to explain the fact that the brilliant sunbeams were shattering off his skin into a thousand rainbow shards like he was made of crystal or diamond? Well, Gran, you might have noticed that my boyfriend glitters. It’s just something he does in the sun. Don’t worry about it.… What was he doing? The whole reason he lived in Forks,

Curious?” This second man was tall as a lamp post. His pale face, lunar pockmarks denting it, cast light on those who stood below. His vest was the color of fresh blood. His eyebrows, his hair, his suit were licorice black, and the sun-yellow gem which stared from the tie pin thrust in his cravat was the same unblinking shade and bright crystal as his eyes. But in this instant, swiftly, and with utter clearness, it was the suit which fascinated Will. For it seemed woven of boar-bramble, clock-spring hair, bristle, and a sort of ever-trembling, ever-glistening dark hemp. The suit caught light and stirred like a bed of black tweed-thorns, interminably itching, covering the man’s long body with motion so it seemed he should excruciate, cry out, and tear the clothes free. Yet here he stood, moon-calm, inhabiting his itch-weed suit and watching Jim’s mouth with his yellow eyes. He never looked once at Will. “The name is Dark.

With my polished Verses as a trellis of pure metal Studded cunningly with rhymes of crystal, I shall make for your head an immense Crown, And from my Jealousy, O mortal Madonna, I shall know how to cut a cloak in a fashion, Barbaric, heavy, and stiff, lined with suspicion, Which, like a sentry-box, will enclose your charms; Embroidered not with Pearls, but with all of my Tears! Your Gown will be my Desire, quivering, Undulant, my Desire which rises and which falls, Balances on the crests, reposes in the troughs, And clothes with a kiss your white and rose body. Of my Self-respect I shall make you Slippers Of satin which, humbled by your divine feet, Will imprison them in a gentle embrace, And assume their form like a faithful mold; If I can’t, in spite of all my painstaking art, Carve a Moon of silver for your Pedestal, I shall put the Serpent which is eating my heart Under your heels, so that you may trample and mock, Triumphant queen, fecund in redemptions, That monster all swollen with hatred and spittle. from “To a Madonna

I travel your body, like the world, your belly is a plaza full of sun, your breasts two churches where blood performs its own, parallel rites, my glances cover you like ivy, you are a city the sea assaults, a stretch of ramparts split by the light in two halves the color of peaches, a domain of salt, rocks and birds, under the rule of oblivious noon, dressed in the color of my desires, you go your way naked as my thoughts, I travel your eyes, like the sea, tigers drink their dreams in those eyes, the hummingbird burns in those flames, I travel your forehead, like the moon, like the cloud that passes through your thoughts, I travel your belly, like your dreams, your skirt of corn ripples and sings, your skirt of crystal, your skirt of water, your lips, your hair, your glances rain all through the night, and all day long you open my chest with your fingers of water, you close my eyes with your mouth of water, you rain on my bones, a tree of liquid sending roots of water into my chest

Far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals. Tales laid in tiles upon the floors, bits of plot worn away by passing feet. Legends carved in crystal and hung from chandeliers. Stories catalogued and cared for and revered. Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them.

Perhaps you understand now why that crystal pyramid was set upon the Moon instead of on the Earth. Its builders were not concerned with races still struggling up from savagery. They would be interested in our civilization only if we proved our fitness to survive -by crossing space and so escaping from the Earth, our cradle. That is the challenge that all intelligent races must meet, sooner or later. It is a double challenge, for it depends in turn upon the conquest of atomic energy and the last choice between life and death." (do conto The Sentinel)

The Wheel Revolves You were a girl of satin and gauze Now you are my mountain and waterfall companion. Long ago I read those lines of Po Chu I Written in his middle age. Young as I was they touched me. I never thought in my own middle age I would have a beautiful young dancer To wander with me by falling crystal waters, Among mountains of snow and granite, Least of all that unlike Po’s girl She would be my very daughter. The earth turns towards the sun. Summer comes to the mountains. Blue grouse drum in the red fir woods All the bright long days. You put blue jay and flicker feathers In your hair. Two and two violet green swallows Play over the lake. The blue birds have come back To nest on the little island. The swallows sip water on the wing And play at love and dodge and swoop Just like the swallows that swirl Under and over the Ponte Vecchio. Light rain crosses the lake Hissing faintly. After the rain There are giant puffballs with tortoise shell backs At the edge of the meadow. Snows of a thousand winters Melt in the sun of one summer. Wild cyclamen bloom by the stream. Trout veer in the transparent current. In the evening marmots bark in the rocks. The Scorpion curls over the glimmering ice field. A white crowned night sparrow sings as the moon sets. Thunder growls far off. Our campfire is a single light Amongst a hundred peaks and waterfalls. The manifold voices of falling water Talk all night. Wrapped in your down bag Starlight on your cheeks and eyelids Your breath comes and goes In a tiny cloud in the frosty night. Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise. Ten thousand years revolve without change. All this will never be again.

Romance Sonambulo" Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea and the horse on the mountain. With the shade around her waist she dreams on her balcony, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. Green, how I want you green. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her and she cannot see them. Green, how I want you green. Big hoarfrost stars come with the fish of shadow that opens the road of dawn. The fig tree rubs its wind with the sandpaper of its branches, and the forest, cunning cat, bristles its brittle fibers. But who will come? And from where? She is still on her balcony green flesh, her hair green, dreaming in the bitter sea. —My friend, I want to trade my horse for her house, my saddle for her mirror, my knife for her blanket. My friend, I come bleeding from the gates of Cabra. —If it were possible, my boy, I’d help you fix that trade. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. —My friend, I want to die decently in my bed. Of iron, if that’s possible, with blankets of fine chambray. Don’t you see the wound I have from my chest up to my throat? —Your white shirt has grown thirsty dark brown roses. Your blood oozes and flees a round the corners of your sash. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. —Let me climb up, at least, up to the high balconies; Let me climb up! Let me, up to the green balconies. Railings of the moon through which the water rumbles. Now the two friends climb up, up to the high balconies. Leaving a trail of blood. Leaving a trail of teardrops. Tin bell vines were trembling on the roofs. A thousand crystal tambourines struck at the dawn light. Green, how I want you green, green wind, green branches. The two friends climbed up. The stiff wind left in their mouths, a strange taste of bile, of mint, and of basil My friend, where is she—tell me— where is your bitter girl? How many times she waited for you! How many times would she wait for you, cool face, black hair, on this green balcony! Over the mouth of the cistern the gypsy girl was swinging, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. An icicle of moon holds her up above the water. The night became intimate like a little plaza. Drunken “Guardias Civiles” were pounding on the door. Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea. And the horse on the mountain.

Tropical palms bring strong solar energy to your home that break up stale energy, and keep your home safe from nasty spiritual entities. The African violet is associated with love and magic, and its vibrant purple flowers pull lunar energy into your home. Aloe, a succulent that grows in long spears, is moon planet associated with the water element because the gel inside the leaves in cooling and healing. The clusters of star shaped flowers that grow on the long tendrils of the hoya, also called a wax plant, produce truly intoxicating nectar whose aroma fills the whole house and bestows blessings on anyone who smells it.

Seal with a seal of gold The scroll of a life unrolled; Swathe him deep in his purple stole; Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal, Drops of gold in each scented fold. Crimson wings of the Little Death, Stir his hair with your silken breath; Flaming wings of sins to be, Splendid pinions of prophecy, Smother his eyes with hues and dyes, While the white moon spins and the winds arise, And the stars drip through the skies. Wave, O wings of the Little Death! Seal his sight and stifle his breath, Cover his breast with the gemmed shroud pressed; From north to north, from west to west, Wave, O wings of the Little Death! Till the white moon reels in the cracking skies, And the ghosts of God arise.

Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don’t dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes -- be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet. Never wear only pink when you can strut in crimson red, sweat in heather grey, and shimmer in sky blue, claim the golden sun upon your hair. Colors are for everyone, boys and girls, men and women -- be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles, not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside. Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies, fierce and fiery toothy monsters, not merely lazy butterflies, sweet and slow on summer days. For you can tame the most brutish beasts with your wily wits and charm, and lizard scales feel just as smooth as gossamer insect wings. Tramp muddy through the house in a purple tutu and cowboy boots. Have a tea party in your overalls. Build a fort of birch branches, a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of Queen Anne chairs and coverlets, first stop on the moon. Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls, bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle, not Barbie on the runway or Disney damsels in distress -- you are much too strong to play the simpering waif. Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy, paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood. Learn to speak with both your mind and heart. For the ground beneath will hold you, dear -- know that you are free. And never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.

I travel your body, like the world, your belly is a plaza full of sun, your breasts two churches where blood performs its own, parallel rites, my glances cover you like ivy, you are a city the sea assaults, a stretch of ramparts split by the light in two halves the color of peaches, a domain of salt, rocks and birds, under the rule of oblivious noon, dressed in the color of my desires, you go your way naked as my thoughts, I travel your eyes, like the sea, tigers drink their dreams in those eyes, the hummingbird burns in those flames, I travel your forehead, like the moon, like the cloud that passes through your thoughts, I travel your belly, like your dreams, your skirt of corn ripples and sings, your skirt of crystal, your skirt of water, your lips, your hair, your glances rain all through the night, and all day long you open my chest with your fingers of water, you close my eyes with your mouth of water, you rain on my bones, a tree of liquid sending roots of water into my chest, I travel your length, like a river, I travel your body, like a forest, like a mountain path that ends at a cliff I travel along the edge of your thoughts, and my shadow falls from your white forehead, my shadow shatters, and I gather the pieces and go with no body, groping my way, the endless corridors of memory, the doors that open into an empty room where all the summers have come to rot, jewels of thirst burn at its depths, the face that vanishes upon recall, the hand that crumbles at my touch, the hair spun by a mob of spiders over the smiles of years ago,

In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies. These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly. At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat. Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals. The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth. In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them. With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green. One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom. “Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap. “I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look. “Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he. Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder. “You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites. “As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean. “Take me with you,” I said to the fox. “Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said. “Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.” “Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered. “No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.” Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me. Like it or not, she had to take me with her. We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed. “This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler. “Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I. “Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

Far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals. Tales laid in tiles upon the floors, bits of plot worn away by passing feet. Legends carved in crystal and hung from chandeliers. Stories catalogued and cared for and revered. Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them. The place is sprawling yet intimate. It is difficult to measure its breadth. Halls fold into rooms or galleries and stairs twist downward or upward to alcoves or arcades. Everywhere there are doors leading to new spaces and new stories and new secrets to be discovered and everywhere there are books.

I travel your body, like the world, your belly is a plaza full of sun, your breasts two churches where blood performs its own, parallel rites, my glances cover you like ivy, you are a city the sea assaults, a stretch of ramparts split by the light in two halves the color of peaches, a domain of salt, rocks and birds, under the rule of oblivious noon, dressed in the color of my desires, you go your way naked as my thoughts, I travel your eyes, like the sea, tigers drink their dreams in those eyes, the hummingbird burns in those flames, I travel your forehead, like the moon, like the cloud that passes through your thoughts, I travel your belly, like your dreams, your skirt of corn ripples and sings, your skirt of crystal, your skirt of water, your lips, your hair, your glances rain all through the night, and all day long you open my chest with your fingers of water, you close my eyes with your mouth of water, you rain on my bones, a tree of liquid sending roots of water into my chest,

The two girls descended the slope of the little mountain. A few steps round a turn in the pathway which skirted the foot of it took them to the pavilion. Near the water's edge, linking it with Lotus Pavilion farther along the shore, was a bamboo railing. The two old women who were on night watch in it, little imagining that an overspill from the hilltop party would come their way, had long since put their light out and gone to sleep. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun laughed when they saw that the pavilion was in darkness. "They've gone to sleep. Never mind. All the better. Let's sit outside here on the covered verandah and look at the moonlight on the water." They found a couple of drum shaped bamboo stools to sit down on. A great white moon in the water reflected the great white moon above, competing with it in brightness. The girls felt like mermaids sitting in a shining crystal palace beneath the sea. A little wind that brushed over the surface of the water making tiny ripples seemed to cleanse their souls and fill them with buoyant lightness.

That was the penalty. He died until the earth got ashamed of itself. He died till the stars got ashamed. He suffered until the sun wouldn't shine. He suffered till the moon turned off its light. He suffered till even the elements of the earth was so black and dark until the midnight so dark you could feel it. Wasn't nothing, no one's ever suffered like that or could suffer like that; there's no mortal could go through it. But He suffered it. God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all and passed His judgments upon Him, and He tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone with no help. There was nothing to help Him. God placed the penalty. Everything was under that penalty and nothing could help Him, 'cause we're all guilty. There's no high priest could've come helped Him. There was nothing could help Him, no pope, no Angel. Everything stood back and watched it. That was the greatest moments was ever in the history of the world. He died until there's not one drop of life left in Him, become like the brass serpent, just a crystallized ornament hanging on the cross.

Now air consists principally of twenty-one parts of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen. The lungs absorb the oxygen, which is indispensable for the support of life, and reject the nitrogen. The air expired loses nearly five per cent. of the former and contains nearly an equal volume of carbonic acid, produced by the combustion of the elements of the blood. In an air-tight enclosure, then, after a certain time, all the oxygen of the air will be replaced by the carbonic acid— a gas fatal to life. There were two things to be done then— first, to replace the absorbed oxygen; secondly, to destroy the expired carbonic acid; both easy enough to do, by means of chlorate of potassium and caustic potash. The former is a salt which appears under the form of white crystals; when raised to a temperature of 400 degrees it is transformed into chlorure of potassium, and the oxygen which it contains is entirely liberated. Now twenty-eight pounds of chlorate of potassium produces seven pounds of oxygen, or 2,400 liters— the quantity necessary for the travelers during twenty-four hours.

September could not even say it was beautiful. It was ever so much bigger and grander than beautiful. She had a feeling stuck in her and she could not name it. It bobbed up and down in her heart like a crystal bottle with a message inside—but she could not get out the stopper. Many years later, folk whose names you and I studied in school went up to the roof of our world and looked down. Perhaps they could name the feeling for her. It’s something like suddenly stepping out of your own skin and seeing yourself from the outside, seeing the body you live in the way it looks to the stars and the sun and the sky and everyone who knows you, without mirrors or photographs or reflections in shop windows. You look at that silly old place you’ve been walking around in and forgetting to brush your teeth or braid your hair neatly and it is nothing like you thought, but somehow, someway, better than you ever hoped it could be. If you want to know a secret—and I do love to tell you secrets when no one else can hear—you cannot grow up at all until you’ve done it, not if you are a little girl nor a whole species.

Pack what you need for the divination,” he said. Relieved that he believed me capable, I walked to his desk. A detailed map of Hereswith was spread over the wood, river rocks pinning down the four corners. It was a map I had memorized with its crooked, winding streets. Above the desk, shelves lined the walls, burdened with leather-bound spell books, stacks of paper, jars brimming with crushed flowers and salt crystals and swan quills, ornate ink pots, cast-iron spoons with jewels embedded in the handles, silver bowls nestled into each other, a potted fern whose wilting leaves dangled like unrequited love. I gathered what I needed: a bowl that shone like a full moon, pink salt, dried gardenias, a spoon with an emerald chip, a pitcher full of water, a swan quill, a silver inkwell that was crafted as an octopus, its tentacles holding a vial of walnut ink. I charmed them all beneath my breath with a shrinking cantrip—a spell my mother had taught me—until the objects could sit cradled in my palm, and I slipped them into my pocket, where the remedies waited. The objects clinked like musical notes when they met, weightless as air.

AND TREMBLING, James stood alone out in the open, wondering what to do. The night was all around him now, and high overhead a wild white moon was riding in the sky. There was not a sound, not a movement anywhere. Most people—and especially small children—are often quite scared of being out of doors alone in the moonlight. Everything is so deadly quiet, and the shadows are so long and black, and they keep turning into strange shapes that seem to move as you look at them, and the slightest little snap of a twig makes you jump. James felt exactly like that now. He stared straight ahead with large frightened eyes, hardly daring to breathe. Not far away, in the middle of the garden, he could see the giant peach towering over everything else. Surely it was even bigger tonight than ever before? And what a dazzling sight it was! The moonlight was shining and glinting on its great curving sides, turning them to crystal and silver. It looked like a tremendous silver ball lying there in the grass, silent, mysterious, and wonderful. And then all at once, little shivers of excitement started running over the skin on James’s back. Something else, he told himself, something stranger than ever this time, is about to happen to me again soon. He was sure of it. He could feel it coming.

Six Significant Landscapes" I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour Of a woman's arm: Night, the female, Obscure, Fragrant and supple, Conceals herself. A pool shines, Like a bracelet Shaken in a dance. III I measure myself Against a tall tree. I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun, With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way ants crawl In and out of my shadow. IV When my dream was near the moon, The white folds of its gown Filled with yellow light. The soles of its feet Grew red. Its hair filled With certain blue crystallizations From stars, Not far off. V Not all the knives of the lamp-posts, Nor the chisels of the long streets, Nor the mallets of the domes And high towers, Can carve What one star can carve, Shining through the grape-leaves. VI Rationalists, wearing square hats, Think, in square rooms, Looking at the floor, Looking at the ceiling. They confine themselves To right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, Cones, waving lines, ellipses -- As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon -- Rationalists would wear sombreros.

The walls behind the counter had deep floor-to-ceiling shelves for vases and jam jars and scented candles, and there was an old wrought-iron revolving stand for cards. But most of the space in the long, narrow shop was taken up with flowers and plants. Today there were fifty-two kinds of cut blooms, from the tiny cobalt-blue violets that were smaller than Lara's little fingernail to a purple-and-green-frilled brassica that was bigger than her head. The flowers were set out in gleaming metal buckets and containers of every shape and size. They were lined up on the floor three deep and stacked on the tall three-tier stand in the middle of the shop. The plants, huge leafy ferns and tiny fleshy succulents, lemon trees and jasmine bushes and freckled orchids, were displayed on floating shelves that were built at various heights all the way up to the ceiling. Lara had spent weeks getting the lighting right. There were a few soft spotlights above the flower displays, and an antique crystal chandelier hung low above the counter. There were strings of fairy lights and dozens of jewel-colored tea lights and tall, slender lanterns dotted between the buckets. When they were lit, they cast star and crescent moon shapes along the walls and the shop resembled the courtyard of a Moroccan riad- a tiny walled garden right in the middle of the city.

Romance of the sleepwalker" Green, as I love you, greenly. Green the wind, and green the branches. The dark ship on the sea and the horse on the mountain. With her waist that’s made of shadow dreaming on the high veranda, green the flesh, and green the tresses, with eyes of frozen silver. Green, as I love you, greenly. Beneath the moon of the gypsies silent things are looking at her things she cannot see. Green, as I love you, greenly. Great stars of white hoarfrost come with the fish of shadow opening the road of morning. The fig tree’s rubbing on the dawn wind with the rasping of its branches, and the mountain cunning cat, bristles with its sour agaves. Who is coming? And from where...? She waits on the high veranda, green the flesh and green the tresses, dreaming of the bitter ocean. - 'Brother, friend, I want to barter your house for my stallion, sell my saddle for your mirror, change my dagger for your blanket. Brother mine, I come here bleeding from the mountain pass of Cabra.’ - ‘If I could, my young friend, then maybe we’d strike a bargain, but I am no longer I, nor is this house, of mine, mine.’ - ‘Brother, friend, I want to die now, in the fitness of my own bed, made of iron, if it can be, with its sheets of finest cambric. Can you see the wound I carry from my throat to my heart?’ - ‘Three hundred red roses your white shirt now carries. Your blood stinks and oozes, all around your scarlet sashes. But I am no longer I, nor is this house of mine, mine.’ - ‘Let me then, at least, climb up there, up towards the high verandas. Let me climb, let me climb there, up towards the green verandas. High verandas of the moonlight, where I hear the sound of waters.’ Now they climb, the two companions, up there to the high veranda, letting fall a trail of blood drops, letting fall a trail of tears. On the morning rooftops, trembled, the small tin lanterns. A thousand tambourines of crystal wounded the light of daybreak. Green, as I love you, greenly. Green the wind, and green the branches. They climbed up, the two companions. In the mouth, the dark breezes left there a strange flavour, of gall, and mint, and sweet basil. - ‘Brother, friend! Where is she, tell me, where is she, your bitter beauty? How often, she waited for you! How often, she would have waited, cool the face, and dark the tresses, on this green veranda!’ Over the cistern’s surface the gypsy girl was rocking. Green the bed is, green the tresses, with eyes of frozen silver. An ice-ray made of moonlight holding her above the water. How intimate the night became, like a little, hidden plaza. Drunken Civil Guards were beating, beating, beating on the door frame. Green, as I love you, greenly. Green the wind, and green the branches. The dark ship on the sea, and the horse on the mountain.

At this point in the story, a child interrupted from the crowd, asking fearfully and loudly if the gods were terrible to behold. The storytellers smiled, and bowed to the philosophers. One of these, a venerable elderly man, spoke gravely to the child. “No, indeed. The gods are beautiful, and just. Those who reverence and obey them need fear nothing from the gods. The gods reward those who adhere to them. Those who stray, they punish. Then they are terrible, terrible in their perfection and magnificence.” “But,” said the child anxiously, “what do they look like?” The philosopher was done, however, and the storytellers proceeded with their tale. “Hush!” said the child’s nurse sharply. “But,” said the child, “if I cannot tell them from their looks, how am I to know them and beware of offending them?” Then a voice spoke to the child, a voice which brushed the insides of the child’s ears, wonderfully unexpected, like the sound of the sea inside a shell. “The gods are colorless as crystal for they have no blood in their veins. Neither do they possess breasts or genitals. Their eyes are cold as their country where everything is tinted by frost. But you will probably never meet them; they have no liking for the world.” “Oh,” said the child, and looked up and saw the pale face of a man bending over it, a face so astonishing it dazzled the eyes of the child like the moon. Then the child, dazzled, blinked, and in the little interval of that blink, the man was gone.

Good friendship, in Buddhism, means considerably more than associating with people that one finds amenable and who share one's interests. It means in effect seeking out wise companions to whom one can look for guidance and instruction. The task of the noble friend is not only to provide companionship in the treading of the way. The truly wise and compassionate friend is one who, with understanding and sympathy of heart, is ready to criticize and admonish, to point out one's faults, to exhort and encourage, perceiving that the final end of such friendship is growth in the Dhamma. The Buddha succinctly expresses the proper response of a disciple to such a good friend in a verse of the Dhammapada: 'If one finds a person who points out one's faults and who reproves one, one should follow such a wise and sagacious counselor as one would a guide to hidden treasure' If we associate closely with those who are addicted to the pursuit of sense pleasures, power, riches and fame, we should not imagine that we will remain immune from those addictions: in time our own minds will gradually incline to these same ends. If we associate closely with those who, while not given up to moral recklessness, live their lives comfortably adjusted to mundane routines, we too will remain stuck in the ruts of the commonplace. If we aspire for the highest — for the peaks of transcendent wisdom and liberation — then we must enter into association with those who represent the highest. Even if we are not so fortunate as to find companions who have already scaled the heights, we can well count ourselves blessed if we cross paths with a few spiritual friends who share our ideals and who make earnest efforts to nurture the noble qualities of the Dhamma in their hearts. When we raise the question how to recognize good friends, how to distinguish good advisors from bad advisors, the Buddha offers us crystal-clear advice. In the Shorter Discourse on a Full-Moon Night (MN 110) he explains the difference between the companionship of the bad person and the companionship of the good person. The bad person chooses as friends and companions those who are without faith, whose conduct is marked by an absence of shame and moral dread, who have no knowledge of spiritual teachings, who are lazy and unmindful, and who are devoid of wisdom. As a consequence of choosing such bad friends as his advisors, the bad person plans and acts for his own harm, for the harm of others, and the harm of both, and he meets with sorrow and misery. In contrast, the Buddha continues, the good person chooses as friends and companions those who have faith, who exhibit a sense of shame and moral dread, who are learned in the Dhamma, energetic in cultivation of the mind, mindful, and possessed of wisdom. Resorting to such good friends, looking to them as mentors and guides, the good person pursues these same qualities as his own ideals and absorbs them into his character. Thus, while drawing ever closer to deliverance himself, he becomes in turn a beacon light for others. Such a one is able to offer those who still wander in the dark an inspiring model to emulate, and a wise friend to turn to for guidance and advice.

Thrasher" They were hiding behind hay bales, They were planting in the full moon They had given all they had for something new But the light of day was on them, They could see the thrashers coming And the water shone like diamonds in the dew. And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light Trying to catch an hour on the sun When I saw those thrashers rolling by, Looking more than two lanes wide I was feelin' like my day had just begun. Where the eagle glides ascending There's an ancient river bending Down the timeless gorge of changes Where sleeplessness awaits I searched out my companions, Who were lost in crystal canyons When the aimless blade of science Slashed the pearly gates. It was then I knew I'd had enough, Burned my credit card for fuel Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand With a one-way ticket to the land of truth And my suitcase in my hand How I lost my friends I still don't understand. They had the best selection, They were poisoned with protection There was nothing that they needed, Nothing left to find They were lost in rock formations Or became park bench mutations On the sidewalks and in the stations They were waiting, waiting. So I got bored and left them there, They were just deadweight to me Better down the road without that load Brings back the time when I was eight or nine I was watchin' my mama's T.V., It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode. Where the vulture glides descending On an asphalt highway bending Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars Down the windy halls of friendship To the rose clipped by the bullwhip The motel of lost companions Waits with heated pool and bar. But me I'm not stopping there, Got my own row left to hoe Just another line in the field of time When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun Like the dinosaurs in shrines But I'll know the time has come To give what's mine. Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

One find in Western Australia turned up zircon crystals dated to 4.4 billion years ago, just a couple of hundred million years after the earth and the solar system formed. By analyzing their detailed composition, researchers have suggested that ancient conditions may have been far more agreeable than previously thought. Early earth may have been a relatively calm water world, with small landmasses dotting a surface mostly covered by ocean.15 That’s not to say that earth’s history didn’t have its moments of flaming drama. Roughly fifty to one hundred million years after its birth, earth likely collided with a Mars-sized planet called Theia, which would have vaporized the earth’s crust, obliterated Theia, and blown a cloud of dust and gas thousands of kilometers into space. In time, that cloud would have clumped up gravitationally to form the moon, one of the larger planetary satellites in the solar system and a nightly reminder of that violent encounter. Another reminder is provided by the seasons. We experience hot summers and cold winters because earth’s tilted axis affects the angle of incoming sunlight, with summer being a period of direct rays and winter being a period of oblique ones. The smashup with Theia is the likely cause of earth’s cant. And though less sensational than a planetary collision, both the earth and the moon endured periods of significant pummelings by smaller meteors. The moon’s lack of eroding winds and its static crust have preserved the scars but earth’s thrashing, less visible now, was just as severe. Some early impacts may have partially or even fully vaporized all water on earth’s surface. Despite that, the zircon archives provide evidence that within a few hundred million years of its formation, earth may have cooled sufficiently for atmospheric steam to rain down, fill the oceans, and yield a terrain not all that dissimilar from the earth we now know. At least, that’s one conclusion reached by reading the crystals.

his hands moved busily among the puppets, choosing, discarding, until they pounced finally on the moon with her crystal eyes and her hands shaped like stars. 'I will be the moon,' Kyel said. 'You must make a wish to me.' Lydea slid her fingers into the fox's head, with its sly smile and fiery velvet pelt. 'I wish,' she said, 'that you would take your nap.' 'No,' the prince said patiently, 'you must make a true wish. And I will grant it because I am the moon.' 'Then I must make a fox's wish. I wish for an open door to every hen house, and the ability to jump into trees.' The moon sank onto the blue hillock of Kyel's knee. 'Why?' 'So that I can escape the farmer's dogs when they run after me.' 'Then you should wish,' the prince said promptly, 'that you could jump as high as the moon.' 'A good wish. But there are no hens on the moon, and how would I get back to Ombria?' The moon rose again, lifted a golden hand. 'On a star.' The governess smiled. The fox stroked the prince's hair while he shook away the moon and replaced it with the sorceress, who had one amethyst eye and one emerald, and who wore a black cloak that shimmered with ribbons of faint, changing colors. 'I am the sorceress who lives underground,' the prince said. 'Is there really a sorceress who lives underground?' 'So they --' Lydea checked herself, let the fox speak. 'So they say, my lord.' 'How does she live? Does she have a house?' She paused again, glimpsing a barely remembered tale. 'I think she does. Maybe even her own city beneath Ombria. Some say that she has an ancient enemy, who appears during harsh and perilous times in Ombria's history. Then and only then does the sorceress make her way out of her underground world to fight the evil and restore hope to Ombria.' ... The sorceress descended, long nose down on the silk. Kyel picked another puppet up, looked at it silently a moment. The queen of pirates, whose black nails curved like scimitars, whose hair was a rigid knoll in which she kept her weapons, stared back at him out of glittering onyx eyes.

He embraced her. And touched her. And found her. Yennefer, in some astonishing way hard and soft at the same time, sighed loudly. The words they had uttered broke off, perished among the sighs and quickened breaths, ceased to have any meaning and were dissipated. So they remained silent, and focused on the search for one another, on the search for the truth. They searched for a long time, lovingly and very thoroughly, fearful of needless haste, recklessness and nonchalance. They searched vigorously, intensively and passionately, fearful of needless self-doubt and indecision. They searched cautiously, fearful of needless tactlessness. They found one another, conquered their fear and, a moment later, found the truth, which exploded under their eyelids with a terrible, blinding clarity, tore apart the lips pursed in determination with a moan. Then time shuddered spasmodically and froze, everything vanished, and touch became the only functioning sense. An eternity passed, reality returned and time shuddered once more and set off again, slowly, ponderously, like a great, fully laden cart. Geralt looked through the window. The moon was still hanging in the sky, although what had just happened ought in principle to have struck it down from the sky. ‘Oh heavens, oh heavens,’ said Yennefer much later, slowly wiping a tear from her cheek. They lay still among the dishevelled sheets, among thrills, among steaming warmth and waning happiness and among silence, and all around whirled vague darkness, permeated by the scent of the night and the voices of cicadas. Geralt knew that, in moments like this, the enchantress’s telepathic abilities were sharpened and very powerful, so he thought about beautiful matters and beautiful things. About things which would give her joy. About the exploding brightness of the sunrise. About fog suspended over a mountain lake at dawn. About crystal waterfalls, with salmon leaping up them, gleaming as though made of solid silver. About warm drops of rain hitting burdock leaves, heavy with dew. He thought for her and Yennefer smiled, listening to his thoughts. The smile quivered on her cheek along with the crescent shadows of her eyelashes.