Richard Blanco Quotes

We are always becoming. It never stops

El silencio es el lienzo en blanco, el marco, sobre lo que trabajas; y no tratas de ahogarlo.

Suddenly, no one, including me, was in Guescheste anymore; they weren't in Miami or Cuba; they weren't in the present, or the future, but floating somewhre in the formless, timeless space of memory.

Damos por sentada la luz del día. En cambio, la luz de la luna es otra cuestión. Es inconstante. La luna llena mengua y reaparece. Las nubes pueden oscurecerla hasta un punto que no pueden oscurecer la luz del día. El agua es necesaria para nosotros, pero una cascada no lo es. Y siempre que encontramos una cascada, no es sino algo superfluo, un bello ornamento. Necesitamos la luz del día, pero no la luz de la luna. Cuando llega, no cubre ninguna necesidad. Transforma. Cae sobre los márgenes y la hierba, separando una larga brizna de otra; convirtiendo un montón de hojas marrones y mates en innumerables y álgidos fragmentos; o iluminando las ramas húmedas como si la propia luz fuera dúctil. Sus largos rayos se derraman, blancos y afilados, entre los troncos de los árboles, y palidecen y retroceden al penetrar en la brumosa distancia de los bosques de hayas.

to know a country takes all we know of love: some days better than others, but never easy to keep our promise every morning of every year, of every century, and wake up, stumble downstairs with all our raging hope, sit down at the kitchen table again, still blurry-eyed, still tired, and say: Listen, we need to talk.

En la práctica de meditación, que lo había mantenido sobrio durante años, Richard había tratado de aprender los fundamentos zen, estar atento al momento presente, comenzar de nuevo con cada respiración, pero la habilidad de poner la mente en blanco se le escapaba. Su

We're the cure for the hatred caused by despair. We’re the good morning of a bus driver who remembers our name, the tattooed man who gives up his seat on the subway. We’re every door held open with a smile when we look into each other’s eyes the way we behold the moon. We’re the moon. We’re the promise of one people, one breath declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.

Then countries—your invention—maps jigsawing the world into colored shapes caged in bold lines to say: you’re here, not there, you’re this, not that, to say: yellow isn’t red, red isn’t black, black is not white, to say: mine, not ours, to say war, and believe life’s worth is relative.

Como tú, I woke up to this dream of a country I didn't choose, that didn't choose me--trapped in the nightmare of its hateful glares.

To love a country as if you’ve lost one: as if it were you on a plane departing from America forever, clouds closing like curtains on your country, the last scene in which you’re a madman scribbling the names of your favorite flowers, trees, and birds you’d never see again, your address and phone number you’d never use again, the color of your father’s eyes, your mother’s hair, terrified you could forget these. To love a country as if I was my mother last spring hobbling, insisting I help her climb all the way up to the U.S. Capitol, as if she were here before you today instead of me, explaining her tears, cheeks pink as the cherry blossoms coloring the air that day when she stopped, turned to me, and said: You know, mijo, it isn’t where you’re born that matters, it’s where you choose to die—that’s your country.

Write one more stanza—now. Set the page ablaze with the anger in the hollow ache of our bones— anger for the new hate, same as the old kind of hate for the wrong skin color, for the accent in a voice, for the love of those we’re not supposed to love. Anger for the voice of politics armed with lies, fear that holds democracy at gunpoint.

How I still want to sing despite all the truth of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder than our school bells, our politicians smiling lies at the mic, the deadlock of our divided voices shouting over each other instead of singing together. How I want to sing again-- beautiful or not, just to be harmony--from sea to shining sea--with the only country I know enough to know how to sing for.

How could you, America? With no answer for all I knew of country was my hurt and rage. But home was home: I dusted off the secrets, cleaned up the lies, nailed the creaky floors down, set a fire, and sat with history books I’d never opened, listened to songs I’d never played, pulled out the old map from a dark drawer, redrew it with more colors, less lines. I stoked the fire, burning on until finally: Okay, nothing’s perfect, I understood, I forgive you, I said—and forgiveness became my country.

Let's raise our children together: let them ride the same school buses, learn the same history, swing in the same playgrounds, pedal their bikes down the same streets, share their same city. Then we shall see face to face. Halleluiah.

We can die as valiant as rainbows, and hold light in our lucid bodies like blood.

These contrasts were also meant to reflect the essential beauty and constant struggle of our democracy as expressed in our nation’s motto: e pluribus unum (out of many, one). We are a populace of individual “I’s” who have consented to come together as a “we.” The challenge has been to continuously question who is (or isn’t) included in that “we” and how to redefine and reimagine it. Overall, we’ve managed to move toward a more inclusive understanding of ourselves and acceptance of each another. Historically, though, we have wavered and are currently at a crossroads: Are we going to advance toward a broader definition of “we” or will we retreat to a narrower one?

No one touched the pumpkin foot, except me. I cut a huge slice and dug in. To my surprise, it tasted musty and earthy, just how I imagined the flavor of the color brown would be...

Zampa, nena, haz caso a tu amigo Richard. Si eres capaz de mover ese culo blanco como la leche y plantarlo en la cueva de meditación todos los días durante los siguientes tres meses, te prometo que vas a ver cosas tan bonitas que te van a dar ganas de tirar piedras al Taj Mahal.

We’re the promise of one people, one breath declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.

Love is the right to say: I do and I do and I do . . .

You know, mijo, it isn’t where you’re born that matters, it’s where you choose to die—that’s your country.

Como tú, I want to speak of myself in two languages at once.