“
Love happens when people forgive.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury (Oceans Apart)
“
Maybe love isn't something that comes full circle. It just ebbs and flows, in and out, just like the people in our lives. Just because we didn't end up on the same wave, doesn't mean we aren't apart of the same ocean.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1))
“
I have always wanted to give you the world, so I started giving you pieces of the oceans that kept us apart.
”
”
Karen Quan (Write like no one is reading)
“
A few months apart and an ocean in between us couldn’t keep our thoughts about each other from surfacing. - Taylor First
”
”
Kailin Gow (The Tutor)
“
For Jenn
At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon
and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.
I fought with my knuckles white as stars,
and left bruises the shape of Salem.
There are things we know by heart,
and things we don't.
At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.
I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,
but I could never make dying beautiful.
The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself
veins are kite strings you can only cut free.
I suppose I love this life,
in spite of my clenched fist.
I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
But my lungs remember
the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly
and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.
And I knew life would tremble
like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,
like a prayer on a dying man's lips,
like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone…
just take me just take me
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,
the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.
We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,
but you still have to call it a birthday.
You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess
and hope she knows you can hit a baseball
further than any boy in the whole third grade
and I've been running for home
through the windpipe of a man who sings
while his hands playing washboard with a spoon
on a street corner in New Orleans
where every boarded up window is still painted with the words
We're Coming Back
like a promise to the ocean
that we will always keep moving towards the music,
the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.
Beauty, catch me on your tongue.
Thunder, clap us open.
The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.
Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,
then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women
who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.
I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.
I know the heartbeat of his mother.
Don't cover your ears, Love.
Don't cover your ears, Life.
There is a boy writing poems in Central Park
and as he writes he moves
and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,
and there are men playing chess in the December cold
who can't tell if the breath rising from the board
is their opponents or their own,
and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway
swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,
and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun
with strip malls and traffic and vendors
and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it.
Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I got lost in the feel of him, in the heat of his skin, in the way his body shook when he broke away and I felt like I was dreaming, like I’d forgotten how to think.
(...) We broke apart, fighting to breathe, holding on to each other like we were drowning, like we’d been lost, left for dead in a very large expanse of sea.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (A Very Large Expanse of Sea)
“
You know what I wish? I wish I could put time in a bottle and throw it into the ocean. Then I would have forever to spend with you. I wouldn’t need air to breathe or food to eat. Holding you in my arms would be all the food I would need. Having your love would be the only air I would need to breathe.
”
”
Lynn Austin (While We're Far Apart: (A World War I Homefront Novel Set in New York))
“
Even if we stay oceans apart ―
Soon...
I'll Find You Beneath The Stars
”
”
Granthana Sinha
“
The Voyager
We are all lonely voyagers sailing on life's ebb tide,
To a far off place were all stripling warriors have died,
Sometime at eve when the tide is low,
The voices call us back to the rippling water's flow,
Even though our boat sailed with love in our hearts,
Neither our dreams or plans would keep heaven far apart,
We drift through the hush of God's twilight pale,
With no response to our friendly hail,
We raise our sails and search for majestic light,
While finding company on this journey to the brighten our night,
Then suddenly he pulls us through the reef's cutting sea,
Back to the place that he asked us to be,
Friendly barges that were anchored so sweetly near,
In silent sorrow they drop their salted tears,
Shall our soul be a feast of kelp and brine,
The wasted tales of wishful time,
Are we a fish on a line lured with bait,
Is life the grind, a heartless fate,
Suddenly, "HUSH", said the wind from afar,
Have you not looked to the heavens and seen the new star,
It danced on the abyss of the evening sky,
The sparkle of heaven shining on high,
Its whisper echoed on the ocean's spray,
From the bow to the mast they heard him say,
"Hope is above, not found in the deep,
I am alive in your memories and dreams when you sleep,
I will greet you at sunset and with the moon's evening smile,
I will light your path home.. every last lonely mile,
My friends, have no fear, my work was done well,
In this life I broke the waves and rode the swell,
I found faith in those that I called my crew,
My love will be the compass that will see you through,
So don't look for me on the ocean's floor to find,
I've never left the weathered docks of your loving mind,
For I am in the moon, the wind and the whale's evening song,
I am the sailor of eternity whose voyage is not gone.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
You are the stars hidden by clouds. I know you’re there even when I can’t see you. Your shine peeks out and reaches me in the depths of my soul. Tell me your arms are long enough to reach me across oceans. Tell me someday we will be together, somehow, some way. Tell me that this love we have can survive being together as well as we’ve survived being apart. Tell me we are more than the chasm of our divide.
”
”
Jacqueline Simon Gunn
“
Night after night on starry wings
Night lovers soared so high
Miles apart, across the oceans
Their love forgot to sigh
In heavenly flight’s timelessness
That highest height treasured
Into the deepest of all blues
Their depth of love measured.
From the poem 'The Ballad of Night Lovers
”
”
Munia Khan (To Evince the Blue)
“
This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.
”
”
Dorothy Parker (The Portable Dorothy Parker)
“
Love is a deliberate and determined act of the will. There is nothing idle or passive about it. It doesn’t wane or fail when life gets tough; it only grows stronger and more resolved. It’s the bond that keeps your relationship from drifting when every storm in the ocean is raging to tear you apart. It’s the one thing you can depend on when all of life seems bent on getting you down.
”
”
Jimmy Evans (The Right One: How to Successfully Date and Marry the Right Person)
“
Love is what happens when we forgive. I forgive Connor Evans. A part of me will always love him, but from this day on I won't hate him. Not for one minute. I forgive him because he gave me Max.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury
“
I wished I didn't need an ocean of space to feel comfortable. I still wanted to be loved. Yet again I felt like two people: one who desperately needed a hug, and one who would break apart at the slightest touch. How could I get people to keep their distance without leaving completely? How long would it take for them to get tired of the way I flinched and evaded?
”
”
Ruby Walker (Advice I Ignored: Stories and Wisdom from a Formerly Depressed Teenager)
“
The Universe is made of hands;
Hands that twist fabric and sizzle in the air.
Hands that grasp curls and flick words away
Small, smooth fingers pouring gold over gaping wounds
Before slicing into soft tissue,
Blood mixing with gold.
Hands that make it beautiful.
The Universe is made of bones;
Bones that cut against yards of skin,
Warm and yielding and moulded around the wings that splay across his back.
Bones that cage the heart and dig into the hollows.
Bones that break,
Tear the warm, yielding skin.
Bones that shred and brush his chin.
The Universe is made of lips;
Lips that breathe and stutter warm sighs,
Caressing the cracks in his broken body, the body that he broke.
Lips that carve paths into stone,
That leave trails upon gooseflesh,
Lips that make incisions,
Too delicate to mend.
The Universe is made of blood;
Blood that runs warm and hot and steady and crimson,
Pumping beneath the stone and the gold.
Blood that burns with every jerk of limbs.
Blood that spills on open palms,
Staining the fabric,
Filling up his throat.
The Universe is made of eyes;
Eyes that breach and eyes that splice and eyes that never leave.
Eyes that ripple oceans.
Eyes that whisper in the dark.
Eyes that rip open the seams.
Eyes that create wounds, create chaos, create broken shards of blue.
Eyes that alight and
won’t
let
go.
The Universe was built.
The Universe fell.
You took it apart,
Dragged the chaos from my soul with your hands,
Your bones,
Your lips,
Your blood,
Your eyes.
And now you’re back.
And so is the Universe.
And so, I suppose, am I.
The Universe is made of five things.
The Universe is made of you.
”
”
Velvetoscar (Core 'ngrato)
“
That was her favorite part, the moments of laughter and silliness. In some way, these times made their marriage strong, kept her more in love with Connor Evans every year. If they could play together this way, they would always be okay.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury
“
It used to be that each time you fell in love, the effort of loving released in you the energy to hold everything together a little longer. Then, after several months or years, when things began to crack apart again, you would fall in love with someone else. New energy would be released, and for a time you and your world would be safe once more.
By now, however, you have exhausted that. There seems to be no energy left - if you had discovered alcohol earlier it might have saved a few broken hearts. For you, alcohol is not the problem - it's the solution: dissolving all the separate parts into one. A universal solvent. An ocean.
”
”
Ron Butlin (The Sound of My Voice)
“
By then, violence was already mundane to me, was what I knew, ultimately, of love. Fuck. Me. Up. It felt good to name what was already happening to me all my life. I was being fucked up, at last, by choice. In Trevor's grip, I had a say in how I would be taken apart.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
The Reed Flute's Song
Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
"Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it's not given us
to see the soul. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty."
Hear the love fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away. The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song. A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone. Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn't want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it's best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
The largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, and I was convinced that they were communicating! In infrasound, in concert, sharing big brains and long lives, understanding the pain of high investment in a few precious offspring, aware of the importance and the pleasure of complex sociality, these rare and lovely great ladies were commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore, woman to woman, matriarch to matriarch,
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
We have each other. We lived apart from them; we understand now. Our failure to touch, to belong. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Everybody is gone, and we will join them. We are born apart, driftwood on the banks of an endless dark ocean. And we will be carried away by the swell soon enough. But in between, in a single day of living… that dancing in a strip of sunlight, we can find what we miss. The love that makes us whole. The imminence. Everybody found their other. This pattern is mine...
”
”
Anonymous
“
LOVE HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE FORGIVE
”
”
Karen Kingsbury (Oceans Apart)
“
Do not fear the ghosts in this house; they are the least of your worries.
Personally I find the noises they make reassuring.
The creaks and footsteps in the night,
their little tricks of hiding things, or moving them, I find endearing, not upsettling. It makes the place
feel so much more like a home.
Inhabited.
Apart from ghosts nothing lives here for long. No cats no mice, no flies, no dreams, no bats. Two days ago I saw a butterfly, a monarch I believe, which danced from room to room and perched on walls and waited near to me.
There are no flowers in this empty place, and, scared the butterfly would starve, I forced a window wide, cupped my two hands around her fluttering self,
feeling her wings kiss my palms so gentle,
and put her out, and watched her fly away.
I've little patience with the seasons here, but
your arrival eased this winter's chill.
Please, wander round. Explore it all you wish.
I've broken with tradition on some points. If there is
one locked room here, you'll never know. You'll not find in the cellar's fireplace old bones or hair. You'll find no blood.
Regard:
just tools, a washing-machine, a drier, a water-heater, and a chain of keys.
Nothing that can alarm you. Nothing dark.
I may be grim, perhaps, but only just as grim as any man who suffered such affairs. Misfortune,
carelessness or pain, what matters is the loss. You'll see the heartbreak linger in my eyes, and dream
of making me forget what came before you walked
into the hallway of this house. Bringing a little summer in your glance, and with your smile.
While you are here, of course, you will hear the ghosts, always a room away,
and you may wake beside me in the night,
knowing that there's a space without a door,
knowing that there's a place that's locked but isn't there. Hearing them scuffle, echo, thump and pound.
If you are wise you'll run into the night, fluttering away into the cold,
wearing perhaps the laciest of shifts. The lane's hard flints will cut your feet all bloody as you run,
so, if I wished, I could just follow you,
tasting the blood and oceans of your tears. I'll wait instead, here in my private place, and soon I'll put a candle in the window, love, to light your way back home.
The world flutters like insects. I think this is how I shall
remember you,
my head between the white swell of your breasts,
listening to the chambers of your heart.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders)
“
But shipwrecks were rarely like that, she’d learned later, proud and upright, perched whimsically on the seafloor. Wrecks were wrecked, sure and violent. Shattered and flattened, rotting edges under sand. There was no lovely way for something meant to conquer the sea to instead be torn apart by it.
”
”
Phoebe Rowe (Swan Light)
“
He had lived in an apartment with books touching the ceilings, and rugs thick enough to hide dice; then in a room and a half with dirt floors; on forest floors, under unconcerned stars; under the floorboards of a Christian who, half a world and three-quarters of a century away, would have a tree planted to commemorate his righteousness; in a hole for so many days his knees would never wholly unbend; among Gypsies and partisans and half-decent Poles; in transit, refugee, and displaced persons camps; on a boat with a bottle with a boat that an insomniac agnostic had miraculously constructed inside it; on the other side of an ocean he would never wholly cross; above half a dozen grocery stores he killed himself fixing up and selling for small profits; beside a woman who rechecked the locks until she broke them, and died of old age at forty-two without a syllable of praise in her throat but the cells of her murdered mother still dividing in her brain; and finally, for the last quarter century, in a snow-globe-quiet Silver Spring split-level: ten pounds of Roman Vishniac bleaching on the coffee table; Enemies, A Love Story demagnetizing in the world’s last functional VCR; egg salad becoming bird flu in a refrigerator mummified with photographs of gorgeous, genius, tumorless great-grandchildren.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Here I Am)
“
Every generation of children instinctively nests itself in nature, no matter matter how tiny a scrap of it they can grasp. In a tale of one city child, the poet Audre Lord remembers picking tufts of grass which crept up through the paving stones in New York City and giving them as bouquets to her mother. It is a tale of two necessities. The grass must grow, no matter the concrete suppressing it. The child must find her way to the green, no matter the edifice which would crush it.
"The Maori word for placenta is the same word for land, so at birth the placenta is buried, put back in the mothering earth. A Hindu baby may receive the sun-showing rite surya-darsana when, with conch shells ringing to the skies, the child is introduced to the sun. A newborn child of the Tonga people 'meets' the moon, dipped in the ocean of Kosi Bay in KwaZulu-Natal. Among some of the tribes of India, the qualities of different aspects of nature are invoked to bless the child, so he or she may have the characteristics of earth, sky and wind, of birds and animals, right down to the earthworm. Nothing is unbelonging to the child.
"'My oldest memories have the flavor of earth,' wrote Frederico García Lorca. In the traditions of the Australian deserts, even from its time in the womb, the baby is catscradled in kinship with the world. Born into a sandy hollow, it is cleaned with sand and 'smoked' by fire, and everything -- insects, birds, plants, and animals -- is named to the child, who is told not only what everything is called but also the relationship between the child and each creature. Story and song weave the child into the subtle world of the Dreaming, the nested knowledge of how the child belongs.
"The threads which tie the child to the land include its conception site and the significant places of the Dreaming inherited through its parents. Introduced to creatures and land features as to relations, the child is folded into the land, wrapped into country, and the stories press on the child's mind like the making of felt -- soft and often -- storytelling until the feeling of the story of the country is impressed into the landscape of the child's mind.
"That the juggernaut of ants belongs to a child, belligerently following its own trail. That the twitch of an animal's tail is part of a child's own tale or storyline, once and now again. That on the papery bark of a tree may be written the songline of a child's name. That the prickles of a thornbush may have dynamic relevance to conscience. That a damp hollow by the riverbank is not an occasional place to visit but a permanent part of who you are. This is the beginning of belonging, the beginning of love.
"In the art and myth of Indigenous Australia, the Ancestors seeded the country with its children, so the shimmering, pouring, circling, wheeling, spinning land is lit up with them, cartwheeling into life....
"The human heart's love for nature cannot ultimately be concreted over. Like Audre Lord's tufts of grass, will crack apart paving stones to grasp the sun.
Children know they are made of the same stuff as the grass, as Walt Whitman describes nature creating the child who becomes what he sees:
There was a child went forth every day
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became...
The early lilacs became part of this child...
And the song of the phoebe-bird...
In Australia, people may talk of the child's conception site as the origin of their selfhood and their picture of themselves. As Whitman wrote of the child becoming aspects of the land, so in Northern Queensland a Kunjen elder describes the conception site as 'the home place for your image.' Land can make someone who they are, giving them fragments of themselves.
”
”
Jay Griffiths (A Country Called Childhood: Children and the Exuberant World)
“
A long time back, I used to listen to a song by Dennis Wilson. It was from Pacific Ocean Blue, the album he made after The Beach Boys fell apart. There was a line in it I loved: Loneliness is a very special place. As a teenager, sitting on my bed on autumn evenings, I used to imagine that place as a city, perhaps at dusk, when everyone turns homeward and the neon flickers into life. I recognised myself even then as one of its citizens and I liked how Wilson claimed it; how he made it sound fertile as well as frightening.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day only consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, a silent explosion suddenly happened within me and my whole perception of reality changed.
In a single moment, everything had changed, although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees and one with the people that I meet on my walk.
My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of: ”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I also saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are a part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity. In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university.
Wisdom is basically the understanding that we all are part of the Whole. We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really our innate birthright, and that small children already live in this mystical unity with the Whole.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being)
“
Darkness:
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.
”
”
Lord Byron
“
When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel and
steam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in the
back of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing on
it, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feels
like my whole life is holding its breath.
By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see the
train. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’
living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. It
is the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid.
He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. I
feel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches at
my shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, the
need to scream or cry rising in my throat.
And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps falling
out into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Out
into the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows.
And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of my
spine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feel
the deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones.
It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome and
inappropriate with her stories of our frolicking.
And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. The
darkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flat
against the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place?
Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I remember
the problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with.
But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images of
the days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then,
patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to be
deciphered.
Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep your
eyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light of
the stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in a
rush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing of
the telephone.
When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a person
sleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curl
up on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse.
Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in an
attic.
The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from the
undercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all these
noises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is a
fabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feel
as if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, or
at least not just a train.
The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak of
shoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’s
breathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past,
rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.
”
”
Jason Derr (The Boston 395)
“
Niels Lyhne was tired. These repeated runnings to a leap that was never leaped had wearied him. Everything seemed to him hollow and worthless, distorted and confused, and, oh, so petty! He preferred to stop his ears and stop his mouth and to immerse himself in studies that had nothing to do with the busy everyday world, but were like an ocean apart, where he could wander peacefully in silent forests of seaweed among curious animals.
He was tired, and the root of his weariness sprang from his baffled hope of love; thence it had spread, quickly and surely, through his whole being, to all his faculties and all his thoughts. Now he was cold and passionless enough, but in the beginning, after the blow had fallen, his love had grown, day by day, with the irresistible power of a malignant fever. There had been moments when his soul was almost bursting with insane passion; it swelled like a wave in its infinite longing and frothing desire; it rose and went on rising and rising, till every fiber in his brain and every cord in his heart were strung tense to the breaking point. Then weariness had come, soothing and healing, making his nerves dull against pain, his blood too cold for enthusiasm, and his pulse too weak for action. And more than that, it had protected him against a relapse by giving him all the prudence and egoism of the convalescent. When his thoughts went back to those days in Fjordby, he had a sense of immunity akin to the feeling of a man who has just passed through a severe illness and knows that now, when he has endured his allotted agony, and the fever has burned itself to ashes within him, he will be free for a long, long time.
”
”
Jens Peter Jacobsen (Niels Lyhne)
“
Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things. Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny.
Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections. In the heart of man time calls for eternity, earth for heaven. He must, if normal, seek the things above, as the flower's face is attracted by the sun, and the water-courses are drawn to the ocean. Heavenly-mindedness, so far from blunting or killing the natural desires, produces in the believer a finer organization, with more delicate sensibilities, larger capacities, a stronger pulse of life. It does not spell impoverishment, but enrichment of nature. The spirit of the entire Epistle shows this. The use of the words "city" and "country" is evidence of it. These are terms that stand for the accumulation, the efflorescence, the intensive enjoyment of values. Nor should we overlook the social note in the representation. A perfect communion in a perfect society is promised. In the city of the living God believers are joined to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and mingle with the spirits of just men made perfect. And all this faith recognizes. It does not first need the storms and stress that invade to quicken its desire for such things. Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.
”
”
Geerhardus Vos (Grace and Glory)
“
This was the first time he’d ever made love to me like this, but it was how I’d always dreamed lovemaking should be. Raw. Passionate. Real.
”
”
Amanda Heartley (Oceans Apart Series Collection)
“
Tommorow Call
you call me that night when you were alone and crying,
but I am only an outcast,
and it all blast in my mind,
in my heart,
an ocean of tears falling
let me dream cause I feel so deprim,
don't wake me up I won't get up
cause I always chose to never give up,
but lately it all fall apart like a castle of card
let me go back to my fortress
cause its the only place I can be a mess without distress
and when love don't love you back
make some step back even
if you don't no where to go keep going
even if you don't know what you doing
cause you know you have a blessing
and never let go cause you never know
what can be made of tomorrow even when in a sorrow don't let it go
you never know what can be made of tomorrow
He was like a brother. He never showed it but he was broken and at some point he couldn't handle it anymore.
Whitout the strength to get out of this pain
Full of life i remember him crossing the door for the last time
He was sad inside
He was lost
He was my friend
He was my brother
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to live
if I have time I would tell him that love and the time that goes by also makes mistakes
Now he's gone and people finally realize how amazing he was but now it's to late.
Maybe a little love and a hand to hold it wouldn't have come to this
But I had been the pillar and now the base is broke.
Walking in the street wearing masks of the lie, faded soul in disguise only an entity, invisible, intangible
never let go cause you never know
what can be made of tomorrow even when in a sorrow don't let it go
”
”
Marty Bisson milo
“
The sensation I was feeling on the clifftop was some sort of reverberation in the air itself.… The whale had submerged and I was still feeling something. The strange rhythm seemed now to be coming from behind me, from the land, so I turned to look across the gorge … where my heart stopped.… Standing there in the shade of the tree was an elephant … staring out to sea!… A female with a left tusk broken off near the base.… I knew who she was, who she had to be. I recognized her from a color photograph put out by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry under the title “The Last Remaining Knysna Elephant.” This was the Matriarch herself.… She was here because she no longer had anyone to talk to in the forest. She was standing here on the edge of the ocean because it was the next, nearest, and most powerful source of infrasound. The underrumble of the surf would have been well within her range, a soothing balm for an animal used to being surrounded by low and comforting frequencies, by the lifesounds of a herd, and now this was the next-best thing. My heart went out to her. The whole idea of this grandmother of many being alone for the first time in her life was tragic, conjuring up the vision of countless other old and lonely souls. But just as I was about to be consumed by helpless sorrow, something even more extraordinary took place.… The throbbing was back in the air. I could feel it, and I began to understand why. The blue whale was on the surface again, pointed inshore, resting, her blowhole clearly visible. The Matriarch was here for the whale! The largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, and I was convinced that they were communicating! In infrasound, in concert, sharing big brains and long lives, understanding the pain of high investment in a few precious offspring, aware of the importance and the pleasure of complex sociality, these rare and lovely great ladies were commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore, woman to woman, matriarch to matriarch, almost the last of their kind. I turned, blinking away the tears, and left them to it. This was no place for a mere man.
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
All I knew was wherever he was, I wanted to be there too. If he needed to be fire, I would be rain. If he needed a sword, I would be his shield. There was no force on earth stronger than what we had together. An entire ocean couldn’t even keep us apart. From the moment he’d first kissed me, my soul was home. “I’m in love with you.
”
”
Delaney Foster (Mischief Night (The Obsidian Brotherhood #1))
“
closed off, reminding me of holding on and holding back. And I wonder why the ones who need love the most are so difficult to give it to. CHAPTER 6 I’m sitting on the tiny balcony of my apartment overlooking the ocean.
”
”
Rochelle B. Weinstein (When We Let Go)
“
Once lonely, it seemed the evolution of lonely was getting lonelier, as if sad heads boarded a lifeboat in an ocean that naturally pulled one farther and farther apart from the coast of love.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (A Happy Ghost)
“
Look at her,” he said to himself. “Holding hands! She’s probably already camped in the woods with him! Exchanged supernatural stories. Dinner dates. Shared food! Sex in the car! Concerts! I can never reach a woman like that. She’s too experienced. What new could we do? Even if we were right for each other, I’d always feel small.” Once lonely, it seemed the evolution of lonely was getting lonelier, as if sad heads boarded a lifeboat in an ocean that naturally pulled one farther and farther apart from the coast of love.
Andrei still hoped though. For that coast. That was the thing with this sailor—nothing was waiting for him, but maybe there was. Every time he met someone, his eyes were slightly far away, as if asking in his head: “It’s nice to meet you, but are you there? Did you suffer and reach that place yet? You know that place. Those in that place know that place. After Tolstoy? After a thousand movies? Will you say an honest sentence?” Oh, did he beg, secretly, for strangers to meet him on that lonely floor of life—where life, still hard, was earned, and true, and golden. The place, he cried, we recognize in media, binging in our beds, but don’t dare reach on sidewalks.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (A Happy Ghost)
“
The heart is small, but it has the capacity to love infinite. Man is born with the potential to become an ocean of love. But few people attain to this innate potential. The society, the culture, the civilization, the politicians, the organized church, the priests and the vested interests are all against the individual. They sacrifice the individual for the sake of the collective, the unconscious masses.
The collective does not need love, on the contrary the collective needs hate. The Christians have to hate the Mohammedans, because the collective can only remain together in hate. One country has to hate another country, otherwise it will fall apart.In times of war countries become united against a common enemy. When they do not have a common enemy they start fighting amongst themselves.
The individual can grow only through love and the collective needs hate, so there is a conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of the collective crowd, the collective mob.
The individual has to be very aware not to be exploited by the unconscious crowd. Unless the individual is aware, you can lose the opportunity to grow, to become mature and to attain your innate potential in life.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace)
“
The sensation I was feeling on the clifftop was some sort of reverberation in the air itself.… The whale had submerged and I was still feeling something. The strange rhythm seemed now to be coming from behind me, from the land, so I turned to look across the gorge … where my heart stopped.… Standing there in the shade of the tree was an elephant … staring out to sea!… A female with a left tusk broken off near the base.… I knew who she was, who she had to be. I recognized her from a color photograph put out by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry under the title “The Last Remaining Knysna Elephant.” This was the Matriarch herself.… She was here because she no longer had anyone to talk to in the forest. She was standing here on the edge of the ocean because it was the next, nearest, and most powerful source of infrasound. The underrumble of the surf would have been well within her range, a soothing balm for an animal used to being surrounded by low and comforting frequencies, by the lifesounds of a herd, and now this was the next-best thing. My heart went out to her. The whole idea of this grandmother of many being alone for the first time in her life was tragic, conjuring up the vision of countless other old and lonely souls. But just as I was about to be consumed by helpless sorrow, something even more extraordinary took place.… The throbbing was back in the air. I could feel it, and I began to understand why. The blue whale was on the surface again, pointed inshore, resting, her blowhole clearly visible. The Matriarch was here for the whale! The largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, and I was convinced that they were communicating! In infrasound, in concert, sharing big brains and long lives, understanding the pain of high investment in a few precious offspring, aware of the importance and the pleasure of complex sociality, these rare and lovely great ladies were commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore, woman to woman, matriarch to matriarch, almost the last of their kind. I turned, blinking away the tears, and left them to it. This was no place for a mere man.… Early afternoon. They were coming to this place, to this tall grass, all along. They will feed here for a while and then, because there’s no water right here, go down to where those egrets are. There’s water there. After they’ve had a good drink, they might make a big loop and come back here again later to feed some more. It will be a one-family-at-a-time choice as the adults decide when to drink and bathe. When elephants are finally ready to make a significant move, everyone points in the same direction. But they do wait until the matriarch decides. “I’ve seen families cued up waiting for half an hour,” comments Vicki, “waiting for the matriarch to signal, ‘Okay.’” And now they go. Makelele, eleven years old, walks with a deep limp. Five years ago he showed up with a broken right rear leg. It must have been agony, and it’s healed at a horrible angle, almost as if his knee faces backward, shaping that leg like the hock on a horse. Yet he is here, surviving with a little help from his friends. “He’s slow,” Vicki acknowledges. “It’s remarkable that he’s managing, but his family seems to wait for him.” Another Amboseli elephant, named Tito, broke a leg when he was a year old, probably from falling into a garbage pit.
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
And then they half-ran, half-skipped the last eight blocks to her apartment, their bodies connected by their crossed arms. Half a block away, their combined shadow looked like the wings of a single sea bird, wheeling in a bright sky. Two blocks further, and they looked like two boats, alone on an endless ocean. One block from that, and their joined bodies merged into a symbol of infinity.
”
”
Danika Stone (Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (Intaglio, #1))
“
why could it not be that God allowed evil because it will bring us all to a far greater glory and joy than we would have had otherwise? Isn't it possible that the eventual glory and joy we will know will be infinitely greater than it would have been had there been no evil? What if that future world will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost?
At the simplest level, we know that only if there is danger can there be courage. Apart from sin and evil, we would never have seen the courage of God, or the astonishing extent of his love, or the glory of a deity who lays aside his glory and goes to the cross. For us here in this life, the thought of God's glory is rather remote and abstract. But we must realise that the most rapturous delights you have ever had- in the beauty of a landscape, or in the pleasure of food, or in the fulfillment of a loving embrace- are like dewdrops compared to the bottomless ocean of joy that it will be to see God face-to-face (1 John 3:1-3). That is what we are in for, nothing less. And according to the Bible, that glorious beauty, and our enjoyment of it, has been immeasurably enhanced by Christ's redemption of us from evil and death. We are told that the angels long to endlessly gaze into the gospel, into the wonder of what Jesus did in his incarnation and atonement (1 Peter 1:12)
”
”
Timothy J. Keller
“
2012 My Reply to Andy’s Email My dear ex-Valet, You don’t have to rebuke yourself for not paying more attention to me than you already were. I’m forever grateful for your guidance and love through our years at the Enlightened Royal Oracle Society. You taught me well and loved me unconditionally. You chartered a course that made me who I am today. This is more than I could ask for. Although our separation was not easy, it strengthened my character and fortified my spirit, so I could cope with life’s ever changing landscape. I believe if I had remained under your care, I would have walked in your shadow. I would not have come into my own. But the love we shared will always abide in my spirit, even if we are oceans apart. I’m sure that when the opportunity arises, we will be reunited – if not in this lifetime, in another. We will continue where we left off. As you put it at The Falcon’s Den, “In my life’s education, unconditional love was taught me by The Enlightened Royal Oracle Society.
”
”
Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
“
Crash and burn
All the stars explode tonight
How'd you get so desperate?
How'd you stay alive?
Help me please
Burn the sorrow from your eyes
Oh come on, be alive again
Don't lay down and die
Hey hey, you know what to do
Oh baby, drive away to Malibu
Get well soon
Please don't go any higher
How are you so burned when you're barely on fire?
Cry to the angels
I'm gonna rescue you
I'm gonna set you free tonight, baby
Pour over me
Hey hey, we're all watching you
Oh baby, fly away to Malibu
Cry to the angels
That swallow you
Go and part the sea, yeah, in Malibu
And the sun goes down
I watch you slip away
And the sun goes down
I walk into the waves
And the sun goes down
I watch you slip away
And I walk
And I knew, love would tear you apart
Oh, and I knew the darkest secret of your heart
Hey hey, I'm gonna follow you
Oh baby, fly away, yeah, to Malibu
Oceans of angels
Oceans of stars
Down by the sea is where you drown your scars
I can't be near you
The light just radiates
I can't be near you
The light just radiates
”
”
Hole
“
To me, love is paramount when choosing a mate. It will stand the test of time when the winds blow and the tempest of the outside world tries to tear the marriage apart like the shifting of the waves of an ocean crashing to shore. Love has to be the driving force or the marriage will not last in today’s world.
”
”
Melody Anne (Scorched (Surrender, #4))
“
I’m not spending the whole weekend with you two sniping at each other,” Tommy said. “Erin, we’re going to solve this the way we settle things at the stable when your grandmother isn’t looking.” He nodded at Hunter. “Hit him.”
“Don’t make her do that,” Hunter told Tommy. “She’ll break her hand.”
“Ha! You think awfully well of your chiseled chin,” I said, but Tommy drowned me out, yelling, “Let her hit you or I will hit you myself.”
“This is excellent parenting.” Hunter emphasized his words with an okay sign of his thick fingers. His Rolex flashed in the sunlight before he put his hand down. “Here, Erin.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin.
I edged toward him, balling my fist, feeling better already. “Open your eyes,” I said. “I want you to see it coming.”
“If I open my eyes, I’ll dodge you,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he was used to settling his differences this way with the other stable hands. He closed his eyes again.
I struck while I had the opportunity. Didn’t pause to think about technique or the proper position for my fist, thumb in or thumb out, just hauled back and hit him.
But in the split second before my hand connected with his face, I saw a flash of one of my family’s apartments in Los Angeles, an early one, because I glimpsed the ocean through the window across the room, and as the years went on we’d had less and less money and we’d move farther and farther from the sea. I saw my dad hitting my mom.
I redirected my fist, only grazing Hunter’s chin, and stumbled into the side of the truck. A strong arm hooked in mine and kept me from falling. Hunter drew me to him, chuckling. “Are you okay?”
I shoved him away from me, slid back into the truck, and slammed the door. He wasn’t even sorry and I couldn’t even get revenge. There was no good in this. With a final sniffle I opened my history book, wishing I hadn’t come.
”
”
Jennifer Echols (Love Story)
“
My last image of Cambodia was of darkness, it was the sound of nearly forty mute wanderers, of silent prayers. I closed my eyes.
My father told my Hanuman had crossed the ocean, how he had gone into another life. Look back, my mother said, one last time. I follwed through our twilit apartment, walked in the shade of my father, past bare walls and open windows, the noise of the street pouring in. Between us, she said, I had known love, I had lived a childhood that might sustain me.
I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorize it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter. I felt her in the persistent drumming of water against the boat's hull.
Guard the ones you love, she told me. Carry us with you into the next life.
”
”
Madeleine Thien (Dogs at the Perimeter)
“
It was to these apartments that the boys in puffy jackets returned from their shockingly expensive prep schools in Manhattan or New England.
”
”
Mark Helprin (The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel))
“
Maybe I am hot and cold. And maybe he is overbearing. I can’t deny this gravitational pull that we have with each other. I’m not dumb. I know even an ocean couldn’t keep us apart. I need to keep him close enough for me to survive but far enough for him to not find out the truth about the day that I left.
”
”
Hannah Gray (Love, Ally (Brooks University, #1))
“
If you are lucky enough to find a soul mate in life, hold on to him or her, even if an ocean keeps you apart. One soul. Two bodies. Ari was right. Arthur Bowler
”
”
Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul Love Stories: Stories of First Dates, Soul Mates and Everlasting Love)
“
The heart is small, but it has the capacity to love infinite. Man is born with the potential to become an ocean of love. But few people attain to this innate potential. The society, the culture, the civilization, the politicians, the organized church, the priests and the vested interests are all against the individual. They sacrifice the individual for the sake of the collective, the unconscious masses.
The collective does not need love, on the contrary the collective needs hate. The Christians have to hate the Mohammedans, because the collective can only remain together in hate. One country has to hate another country, otherwise it will fall apart.In times of war countries become united against a common enemy. When they donot have a common enemy they start fighting amongst themselves.
The individual can grow only through love and the collective needs hate, so thereis a conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of the collective crowd, the collective mob.
The individual has to be very aware not to be exploited by the unconscious crowd.Unless the individual is aware, you can lose the opportunity to grow, to become mature and to attain your innate potential in life.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace)
“
Mahoney's emotions raced through her like the breath of the ocean, tides ebbing and flowing, pulling, and pushing, tearing her apart until she understood that life and death were neither with nor without reason, and everyone was like the stars, fires bursting into the cosmos to touch what they didn't understand. Consciousness was a climate one lived within, and dead or alive, it was both torment and bliss, but every second was worth enduring because always within the confusion, there was love, and love survived it all.
”
”
Melodie Ramone
“
The sensation I was feeling on the clifftop was some sort of reverberation in the air itself.… The whale had submerged and I was still feeling something. The strange rhythm seemed now to be coming from behind me, from the land, so I turned to look across the gorge … where my heart stopped.… Standing there in the shade of the tree was an elephant … staring out to sea!… A female with a left tusk broken off near the base.… I knew who she was, who she had to be. I recognized her from a color photograph put out by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry under the title “The Last Remaining Knysna Elephant.” This was the Matriarch herself.… She was here because she no longer had anyone to talk to in the forest. She was standing here on the edge of the ocean because it was the next, nearest, and most powerful source of infrasound. The underrumble of the surf would have been well within her range, a soothing balm for an animal used to being surrounded by low and comforting frequencies, by the lifesounds of a herd, and now this was the next-best thing. My heart went out to her. The whole idea of this grandmother of many being alone for the first time in her life was tragic, conjuring up the vision of countless other old and lonely souls. But just as I was about to be consumed by helpless sorrow, something even more extraordinary took place.… The throbbing was back in the air. I could feel it, and I began to understand why. The blue whale was on the surface again, pointed inshore, resting, her blowhole clearly visible. The Matriarch was here for the whale! The largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, and I was convinced that they were communicating! In infrasound, in concert, sharing big brains and long lives, understanding the pain of high investment in a few precious offspring, aware of the importance and the pleasure of complex sociality, these rare and lovely great ladies were commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore, woman to woman, matriarch to matriarch, almost the last of their kind. I turned, blinking away the tears, and left them to it. This was no place for a mere man
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
He said he will stay no matter what happens and here we both are, across the oceans, happy but not together. Don't make promises you can't keep because not everyone can afford the heartbreak when they aren't fulfilled, it tears them apart and eventually, it leads to pain and trust issues.
”
”
Alizay Wahab
“
A Lover's Call XXVII
Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little
Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you
As infants look upon the breast of their mothers?
Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of
Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon
Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice?
Or amongst the books, seeking human knowledge,
While you are replete with heavenly wisdom?
Oh companion of my soul, where are you? Are you
Praying in the temple? Or calling Nature in the
Field, haven of your dreams?
Are you in the huts of the poor, consoling the
Broken-hearted with the sweetness of your soul, and
Filling their hands with your bounty?
You are God's spirit everywhere;
You are stronger than the ages.
Do you have memory of the day we met, when the halo of
You spirit surrounded us, and the Angels of Love
Floated about, singing the praise of the soul's deed?
Do you recollect our sitting in the shade of the
Branches, sheltering ourselves from Humanity, as the ribs
Protect the divine secret of the heart from injury?
Remember you the trails and forest we walked, with hands
Joined, and our heads leaning against each other, as if
We were hiding ourselves within ourselves?
Recall you the hour I bade you farewell,
And the Maritime kiss you placed on my lips?
That kiss taught me that joining of lips in Love
Reveals heavenly secrets which the tongue cannot utter!
That kiss was introduction to a great sigh,
Like the Almighty's breath that turned earth into man.
That sigh led my way into the spiritual world,
Announcing the glory of my soul; and there
It shall perpetuate until again we meet.
I remember when you kissed me and kissed me,
With tears coursing your cheeks, and you said,
"Earthly bodies must often separate for earthly purpose,
And must live apart impelled by worldly intent.
"But the spirit remains joined safely in the hands of
Love, until death arrives and takes joined souls to God.
"Go, my beloved; Love has chosen you her delegate;
Over her, for she is Beauty who offers to her follower
The cup of the sweetness of life.
As for my own empty arms, your love shall remain my
Comforting groom; your memory, my Eternal wedding."
Where are you now, my other self? Are you awake in
The silence of the night? Let the clean breeze convey
To you my heart's every beat and affection.
Are you fondling my face in your memory? That image
Is no longer my own, for Sorrow has dropped his
Shadow on my happy countenance of the past.
Sobs have withered my eyes which reflected your beauty
And dried my lips which you sweetened with kisses.
Where are you, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping
From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need?
Do you know the greatness of my patience?
Is there any spirit in the air capable of conveying
To you the breath of this dying youth? Is there any
Secret communication between angels that will carry to
You my complaint?
Where are you, my beautiful star? The obscurity of life
Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.
Sail your smile into the air; it will reach and enliven me!
Breathe your fragrance into the air; it will sustain me!
Where are you, me beloved?
Oh, how great is Love!
And how little am I!
”
”
Kahlil Gibran
“
Loving you
Loving you like creating my own destiny
Because it just drives me crazy it feels like a symphony
You see my love for you is like an ocean
It matches swiftly with my heartbeat as it glides through the motion
Loving you is like a burning desire
That's because there's really nothing else I want but it is actually your love that I most certainly require
That's because you came into my life and took my sorrows away
This is why I will always love,care, cherish and need every single day in every step of the way
Loving you is like something I just cannot explain
But one thing I know for sure is being left by you would leave my heart torn apart with such imense pain
You see loving you was not just a choice I had take nor a decision I had make but a wonderful journey which was worth the date
”
”
Akhona.p
“
Loving you
Loving you like creating my own destiny
Because it just drives me crazy it feels like a symphony
You see my love for you is like an ocean
It matches swiftly with my heartbeat as it glides through the motion
Loving you is like a burning desire
That's because there's really nothing else I want but it is actually your love that I most certainly require
That's because you came into my life and took my sorrows away
This is why I will always love,care, cherish and need every single day in every step of the way
Loving you is like something I just cannot explain
But one thing I know for sure is being left by you would leave my heart torn apart with such imense pain
You see loving you was not just a choice I had take nor a decision I had make but a wonderful journey which was worth the date
”
”
Akhona.p
“
I was the first to arrive, and Bill was in the process of cleaning his barbecue. He looked about forty, and he told me that he and Violet had been on the island for three years, ever since he’d been made redundant from his job in Sydney. Apart from helping Tom out when he needed it, he and Violet managed a group of four holiday cabins for an absentee owner, and also ran a low-key café in the holiday season. They loved it and intended to stay until the kids had to go to secondary school
”
”
Jenni Ogden (A Drop in the Ocean)
“
me, love is paramount when choosing a mate. It will stand the test of time when the winds blow and the tempest of the outside world tries to tear the marriage apart like the shifting of the waves of an ocean crashing to shore. Love has to be the driving force or the marriage will not last in today’s world.
”
”
Melody Anne (Scorched (Surrender, #4))